Trump's Negotiation Style Hits Limits on the International Stage

Criticism is emerging that President Donald Trump's diplomatic negotiation skills, once dubbed those of a 'master negotiator' during his real estate business career, are limited on the actual international stage. The recent situation where a second round of negotiations between the United States and Iran has yet to be confirmed further supports this. New York Times (NYT) columnist Carlos Lozada pointed out that President Trump's image as the 'peak of negotiation' is an illusion created by books and TV shows, assessing that his negotiation abilities have hit their limits on the international diplomatic stage during his second term.

While President Trump used extreme rhetoric such as 'bombing Tehran' and 'Iran will return to the Stone Age' to draw Iran to the negotiating table, analyses suggest that his bullying, authoritarian negotiation tactics do not work on Iran. Iran's semi-official Mehr News Agency reiterated the Iranian side's principle of "no negotiations under threat and blockade." Lozada noted that President Trump, applying tactics from his business days to foreign policy, aims to control news cycles and markets rather than manage wars, criticizing him for indiscriminately issuing meaningless ceasefire deadlines when wars do not move according to neat schedules.

Bloomberg News has raised questions about the current administration's capacity to design a surveillance mechanism as sophisticated as the Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA) from the Obama era. The Trump administration is analyzed to be insisting on a comprehensive package deal with significant conditions such as 'ban on uranium enrichment' and 'unlimited inspections of nuclear facilities.' The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a U.S. think tank, pointed to changes in Iran's decision-making process following the death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Even the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire agreement has lost its effect. Iran had previously presented a condition for a U.S.-Iran armistice, demanding an end to attacks against the pro-Iranian armed group Hezbollah. Although the U.S. brokered a first ceasefire between the two sides, Israel continued airstrikes in southern Lebanon even during the ceasefire period.