by Thomas Cangelosi, CT Mirror
May 23, 2025
The article below is republished here under a Creative Commons License and originally appeared on the CT Mirror website on May 23, 2025.
Contrary to the title of President Trump’s best-selling book, “The Art of the Deal,” there’s no art in Trump’s actual deals. There is, however, a great deal of artifice.
The book’s very authorship is a sham, according to its ghost writer Tony Schwartz, and Howard Kaminsky, the publisher, both of whom claim Trump played no role in the writing.
In reality, Trump’s “art” of making deals amounts to bullying, intimidating, suing, extorting, bribing and lying to get what he wants, even though he most often fails.
For instance, Trump says, “Deals work best when each side gets something it wants from the other.” (The Art of the Deal) But to gain leverage, Trump first makes threats or files lawsuits or imposes unfair penalties on his competitor; then he offers to withdraw the threat or penalty to get what he wants. Sounds a lot like extortion, or like the quid pro quo he offered President Volodymyr Zelensky during his “perfect call,” when Trump withheld Congressionally approved military aid to Ukraine unless Zelensky agreed, as a “favor,” to dig up dirt on Joe Biden and his son.
Likewise, in Trump’s second term, he prefaced “deals” with Canada and Mexico with the imposition of tariffs; or in the cases of Greenland and Panama, with threats of military force.
In addition to threats and extortion, Trump also deals in lies and manipulation. “The final key to the way I promote is bravado. I play to people’s fantasies. People may not always think big themselves, but they can still get very excited by those who do. That’s why a little hyperbole never hurts.”
On the contrary, when a U.S. president plays with the faith of millions of voters like an unscrupulous used car salesman selling a “lemon” to a trusting customer, he’s inflicting suffering on an entire nation to further inflate his own ego and personal wealth. Indeed, rather than solving the problems he hyperbolically promised, he has only exacerbated them.
Consider this campaign whopper: “When I win, I will immediately bring prices down, starting on Day One.” By slapping tariffs on other nations, he expected the world to fall at his feet and bend to his will. Or as he graphically bragged, “I’m telling you, these countries are calling us up, kissing my a–.” They are dying to make a deal, ‘Please, please, sir, make a deal. I’ll do anything, sir!”
[Note: whenever Trump quotes someone addressing him as “sir,” it’s a tell-tale sign he’s made up the entire encounter.]
Then he compounded the lie, falsely claiming, “I’ve made 200 deals,” on tariffs. First, there are only 195 countries in the world. Second, it turns out Trump had made precisely no deals at that point. In fact, he admitted that rather than negotiating deals, he was simply dictating terms: “We’re going to put very fair numbers down, and we’re going to say, here’s what this country, what we want. And congratulations, we have a deal.”
In other words, he’s made demands, not deals.
Indeed, when he finally announced a so-called “deal” with a specific nation, the United Kingdom, it amounted to no deal at all. The 10% tariff imposed on the UK before the deal remains at 10% after the deal, with further details to be negotiated. But according to chief economist at RSM, Joe Bruseulas, “A trade agreement where the details are still being negotiated is not an agreement.”
Trump’s economic dealings with China amount to more brags and bluff. The President would have us believe that he imposed stratospheric tariffs on China based upon his alleged study of Chinese culture and thought. “I’ve read hundreds of books about China over the decades. I know the Chinese. I’ve made a lot of money with the Chinese. I understand the Chinese mind.”
I assume this is more of his “truthful hyperbole” because it strains credibility that the man who can’t read security briefings has read hundreds of books on anything, much less China. And far from knowing the Chinese mind, he can’t even remember that China never blinked in the face of tariffs during his first administration. Meanwhile his latest so-called “agreement” with China to reduce reciprocal tariffs returns the trade war to “square one.”
But all of Trump’s deal-making bluff and bluster has cost American consumers more at the cash register, reduced investors’ life savings, and thrown a wrench of uncertainty into the complex machinery of the world economy. Further, it has alienated our allies, and undermined our nation’s reputation, security, and status in the world. [I will save for another day the cost of another of his hyperbolic promises: to “end the war in Ukraine “on day one.”]
Suffice it to say, that Trump’s “truthful hyperbole” amounts to the substance of Trump’s persona, character, and leadership. It is a euphemism for the lies he tells the American public. The truth is that Trump’s deal making, like the man, is more artifice than artful.
This article first appeared on CT Mirror and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.