HORIST: Does Trump negotiate WITH or LIKE the Asians?

Larry Horist

8 years ago

There is a great difference between negotiating WITH Asians and negotiating LIKE Asians&period; In dealing with both China and North Korea, Trump maybe using the Asian approach to maximum advantage&period; &nbsp&semi;It is a distinction worthy of exploring&period;&nbsp&semi;&NewLine;Having been involved in scores of negotiations with the Chinese &ndash&semi; government and business leaders, as well as street vendors &ndash&semi; I think I can speak to the negotiating differences between Westerners and Asians with significant experience&period;&NewLine;One of the cultural differences between western and Asian negotiations is where one sets the opening demands&period;&nbsp&semi; Asians tend to set them much further out&period;&nbsp&semi; If you ask a street merchant the price of a pair of shoes worth between &dollar;20 and &dollar;30, the initial demand may be a seemingly ridiculous &dollar;200&period;&nbsp&semi; If you know the game, you counter with a ridiculously low offer of &dollar;5&period;&nbsp&semi; Since Asians are willing to move further away from their initial demand, after a series of offers and counteroffers, the closing price will be in the &dollar;20 to &dollar;30 range&period;&nbsp&semi; <a name="&lowbar;Hlk514325338"></a>This same bargaining technique applies to high government officials, where hundreds of millions of dollars can be at stake&period;&NewLine;In western negotiations, a seemingly outrageous demand will more likely end negotiations in the belief that such an extreme demand precludes any mutually satisfactory settlement&period;&nbsp&semi; In Asia, the folks on the other side of the table will insist that their demands are non-negotiable&period;&nbsp&semi; They may even walk out of a meeting &ndash&semi; only to return later&period;&nbsp&semi; &NewLine;This seems to be what is happening with North Korea&period;&nbsp&semi; As they prepare for the sit-down meeting with Trump, they are taking a very hard line&period;&nbsp&semi; They are threatening to cancel the talks&period;&nbsp&semi; But will they&quest;&nbsp&semi; I doubt it&period;&nbsp&semi; The North Korean foreign minister bloviated about the U&period;S&period;/South Korean military exercises and comments made by White House Foreign Policy Advisor John Bolton, but they are still open to meeting&period;&nbsp&semi; The canceling of the less important talks with South Korea is pure public relations&period;&nbsp&semi; Everyone understands that progress with North Korea hinges on the United States&period;&NewLine;I bring up the Asian negotiating style because Trump&rsquo&semi;s approach may not be as erratic as his critics believe&period;&nbsp&semi; Like the Asians, Trump tends to initially set an extreme parameter, and then moves in as the issue progresses&period;&nbsp&semi; Those who only see ineptitude or negative intent in these shifts accuse Trump of &ldquo&semi;changing his mind,&rdquo&semi; &ldquo&semi;breaking his word,&rdquo&semi; &ldquo&semi;playing to his base&rdquo&semi; or &ldquo&semi;not understanding the issues&period;&rdquo&semi;&nbsp&semi; However, those hardline statements may be more cunning than incompetent&period;&NewLine;While the &num;NeverTrump folks see only chaos in his statements and deems his compromises as &ldquo&semi;walking back&rdquo&semi; previous positions, there is a pattern &ndash&semi; both in what he says and in the results he achieves&period;&nbsp&semi; To wit&colon;&NewLine;Trump was chastised by the left for publicly berating the NATO heads of states for failing to meet their financial obligations to fund the alliance &ndash&semi; leaving a disproportionate burden on the United States&period;&nbsp&semi; He even &ldquo&semi;hinted&rdquo&semi; at abandoning the alliance&period;&nbsp&semi; Such open criticism of our Euro allies was deemed to be undiplomatic by the pin-striped pants bureaucrats at the UN and in our own State Department &ndash&semi; the same folks who talked about the problem behind closed doors for decades, but never solved it&period;&nbsp&semi; The roundly criticized Trump achieved what his critics had failed to accomplish&period;&nbsp&semi; Even as some leaders groused and moaned, they did start to invest more&period;&NewLine;In a similar fashion, Trump was again criticized as a President serving above his pay grade when he publicly called on Arab nations to do more to fight against Islamic terrorism&period;&nbsp&semi; Trump ignored the widely accepted complexities of the Middle East to clarify U&period;S&period; demands &ndash&semi; fight the bad guys or lose our patronage and friendship&period;&nbsp&semi; Trump removed a lot of &ldquo&semi;complexity&rdquo&semi; and ambiguity when he cut off funding to the Palestinians and Pakistanis&period;&nbsp&semi; &NewLine;By ripping up the failed playbook of the past, Trump was able to convene more than 50 Muslim-majority nations to develop a strategic action plan to deal with terrorism &ndash&semi; and to do so in cooperation with Israel&period;&NewLine;On the campaign trail, Trump said that America should have a temporary ban on Muslim immigration and migration&period;&nbsp&semi; It would be hard to deny that it was not a rather extreme and over-the-top statement&period;&nbsp&semi; When it came to implementing the actual policy, Trump imposed a much more limited and rational policy&period;&nbsp&semi; &NewLine;For obvious reasons, the never-Trump left wingers locked on his flamboyant campaign rhetoric as if it was policy and ignored the actual policy&period;&nbsp&semi; Whenever the subject comes up in media reports, the old campaign talk plays center stage even though it is no longer meaningful or relevant&period;&nbsp&semi; This sort of dishonesty was evident with a left-wing judge in the uber-liberal Ninth Federal Judicial District decided against Trump based on his campaign statement as opposed to the actual Executive Order&period;&NewLine;With regard to the &ldquo&semi;Dreamers,&rdquo&semi; Trump again appeared to be setting an extreme position &ndash&semi; basically ending a program that protected those illegal aliens brought here as children&period;&nbsp&semi; Trump claimed that neither he nor President Obama had the authority to issue such an Executive Order&period;&nbsp&semi; Obama had said the same thing before he rejected his own legal advice and issued the EO&period; (As one has come to expect, that about-face by Obama brought virtually no criticism from the fawning press&period;)&nbsp&semi; After weeks of criticism for being heartless and wanting to deport the 800,000 eligible dreamers, Trump unveiled his proposal to Congress that protected 1&period;8 million dreamers &ndash&semi; those who had officially signed on and those who failed to do so&period;&NewLine;Even in the failed effort on Obamacare, Trump&rsquo&semi;s initial demands to immediately and completely repeal and replace got modified by ongoing negotiations&period;&nbsp&semi; The failed legislation would have provided for a slower transition to a more private sector-based program&period;&nbsp&semi; Trump achieved a significant goal by successfully ending the mandate that forced people into low cost programs with virtually no real coverage&period;&nbsp&semi; Over time, the lack of funds from forced coverage will end Obamacare&period;&NewLine;All this does not mean that everything Trump says can be disregarded as a negotiating strategy&period;&nbsp&semi; With respect to the Paris Accords on climate change and the Iran Deal, he terminated the agreements &ndash&semi; but only to open negotiations for what he calls &ldquo&semi;agreements better for the United States&period;&rdquo&semi;&nbsp&semi; &NewLine;The criticism of the President&&num;8217&semi;s bellicose language is not without some justification &ndash&semi; and I have been a constant critic&period;&nbsp&semi; He could probably do better by toning it down a bit&period;&nbsp&semi; But, in terms of the all-important big picture, Trump is having a lot of successes where his predecessors failed miserably&period;&NewLine;The unforgiving and constant critics of the anti-Trump media seize on partial progress and temporary setbacks to spin Trump policies as universal failures&period; &nbsp&semi;They refuse to recognize and report on positive progress, overcoming setbacks and the President&rsquo&semi;s outright successes &&num;8212&semi; think ISIS, tax reform, judicial appointments and much more&period;&nbsp&semi; Despite their awesome power, the Big Seven of the &num;NeverTrump media (ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, New York Times and the Washington Post) is failing to convince a public which believes the nation is now going in the right direction by an almost two-thirds majority&period;&NewLine;&nbsp&semi;&NewLine;&nbsp&semi;&NewLine;