We haven't seen too much in the way of deals. As a matter of
fact, we haven't seen any deals, at least not any of
consequence. Is it possible that Donald Trump was never such a great dealmaker
in the first place?
That's one way to look at it. Trump has made some lucrative
deals; in fact, in recent years his company has been increasingly dependent on
licensing deals, in which he sells the rights to use his name to a developer
putting up an apartment building or a resort in some far-flung locale.
His particular style of dealmaking often involved seeing how
he could get over on people dumb enough to trust him. As he has made amply
clear, he has a zero-sum worldview about nearly everything: Either you're
getting screwed, or you're the one doing the screwing. In some contexts, it
works. Trump could shaft
a piano supplier, safe in the knowledge that the guy was just a small
business owner who wouldn't have the means to fight him. That left him with a
bunch of free pianos, and if he ever needed any more, he could get them from
somebody else who wasn't aware that Trump was likely to stiff him on the deal.
When you bring that approach to politics, you find that
things don't work quite the same way. You can launch Trump University, scam the
customers, and then move on to the next group of suckers (until the courts catch
up with you, that is). But in politics, you have to keep making deals with
the same people.
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Speaking of trade, you might also have noticed that Trump has
not yet renegotiated NAFTA to bring back all the manufacturing jobs the country
has lost in the last few decades. And he can't seem to decide whether he's
going to take another shot at negotiating a health-care deal, or move on to an
equally difficult negotiation over tax reform.
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