“I don’t do it for money. I have much, more than I will ever need. I do it for love of art.” Thus begins The Art of the Deal (Random House), Donald Trump’s autobiographical book in which he left his good instinct in the business world and his particular way of making deals. Written in 1987 by the journalist Tony Schwartz, when Trump was already a successful businessman, but still far from politics, the book has since sold more than one million copies and their pages are still revealing because they can help understand some decisions that the current president of the United States is making.
Reading the volume there is no doubt that Trump has transferred to politics its ‘art’ to negotiate And, although almost 40 years have passed since the publication of the book, it seems indisputable that many of the guidelines that appear in writing in that good negotiator manual are applying in the White House. Here are some examples:
Tariffs and the commercial war unleashed
It is notorious that the tariffs announced by Trump against half the world have caused an earthquake of magnitude still unknown to international trade and have left the world bags giving bounds aimless defined. The jump to US protectionism is A very risky movementbut the Republican already showed his boldness on the pages of his book:
I like to think big. I always do it. For me it is very easy: since you have to think anyway, it is better to be big “
Many think of a child, because there are many who fear success, fear making decisions, fear winning. Which gives a great advantage to those who are like me “
We do not know if the play will work out Trump, but for now he has made Washington phones stop sounding because all countries affected by the ‘tariff’ try to negotiate agreements with the US to avoid a commercial war that ballast global growth. Most likely That was Trump’s true intention When he presented the list of encumbrances: negotiate more advantageous conditions for US exports:
My style in negotiation is quite simple and flat. I point very high, and from there everything is to throw and throw until I get what I want. Sometimes I conform with less, but in many cases I achieve what I had proposed “
In any case, Trump is convinced that the US is not receiving fair treatment by its commercial partnersespecially from China, but also by the EU, Canada or Mexico. “The EU was created to fuck the US,” he has literally said in public, so it is not difficult to imagine what he will think in private. And that feeling of grievance explains that it has embarked on a commercial war, even at the risk of causing a recession:
If it seems to me that I am being the victim of an injustice, I prefer to fight, even if it is expensive, difficult and risky “
There is a specific paragraph in which Trump seems to advance in 1987 his intentions to put limits to imports. It can be read in chapter 7, in which it tells that many Japanese millionaires are buying floors in their Trump Tower New York. Although he says he has “much respect” for them, he says the following:
It is a misfortune that for several decades have become rich, to a large extent, annoying the United States with a selfish commercial policy, which
Our political leaders have never been able to counteract “
Of course, Trump also counts in the book that You have to be “flexible” in businesshence that ‘flexibility’ that has demonstrated with tariffs, which has finally paused for 90 days for all its commercial partners, except China:
I protect myself trying to stay flexible. I never got too close to a single business or a single approach “
In my juggling I keep many balls in the air at the same time, because many businesses fail why they have similar “
Instinct against the advice of economists
Many economists have warned that tariffs can take an economic recession to the US, but Trump already stressed in his book that He prefers to be guided by his own instinct And that it is not too in favor of listening to academics:
“I like to believe that I have instinct. That is why I do not contract legions of economists or I trust a lot of market studies. I do my own studies and extract my own conclusions”
However, that instinctive procedure should not lead us to underestimate your decisions, because Trump explains that he doesn’t like to leave anything randomly And that, when it makes a movement, its consequences are usually calculated:
“People believe I am a player. Nothing is further from that. For me, a player is the one who puts coins in the slot machines. I prefer to own the machines. The bank always wins.”
The expenditure in defense, its position of force in NATO
Trump’s first days in the White House have also placed the world geostrategic board up to warn their NATO partners that the US is no longer willing to continue financing their safety. So much so, that European countries are preparing the greatest increase in military spending since the end of the Cold War. Trump knows what At this point he has the pan for the mango And he has not hesitated when playing that asset:
The worst thing that can happen to one in a business is to have a desperate need to do so. When this happens, the opponent sniffs the blood, and you can take for dead “
It is best to negotiate from a position of strength, and the strongest position is the one that contains an advantage “
In business, the advantage is defined as having something that the other wants, or rather, needs; Or better yet, that you can’t happen without what you have “
Trump considers that European countries have taken advantage of the US Saving in defense while Washington allocated a good pinch of its annual budget to ensure NATO borders. And in the book it makes it clear that he does not support that they treat him unfairly:
My character is very bearable and I port well with those who behave well with me. But when someone treats me badly or unjustly, or intends to take advantage of me, then my position has always been to fight with maximum hardness “
The enemy of bureaucracy
The bureaucracy has always caused Tricaria to Trump and, perhaps for that reason, hates negotiating with blocks such as EU or NATOwith multiple superimposed power structures. He prefers to deal directly with governments with the power of real decision and reach agreements without them having to be endorsed by levels outside that negotiation:
In many large companies, the answer to any question has to go through seven executive strata, many of which are superfluous “
In the pages of The Art of the Deal emphasize not to depend on complex hierarchical structures It has always been one of its advantages In the business world:
We had an important advantage: the fact of not being a bureaucracy. That is why I have seen myself in a position to act faster than my competitors in many businesses “
In our organization, who has a question can ask me directly to me and will receive an immediate answer “
To speak badly of me, but to speak
The eccentric character of the US president also has his reason for being and thus reflected in the book. The search for effect blows, high statements and Theaters in front of the media They have always been tools that you have used to succeed in business and that has not stopped using in politics. “It never hurts a bit of hyperbole,” he says on page 38, aware that this is precisely what the press is looking for:
Newspapers always walk anxious to a good subject, the more sensational, the better. If you are a bit different from the others or a little scandalous, if you do controversial things, then the newspapers will write about you “
I have always done things somewhat different, do not scare me the controversies, and my businesses tend to be a bit ambitious. The press is always looking forward to writing about me “
The famous phrase ‘That they speak badly of me, but to speak’attributed to Salvador Dalí or Oscar Wilde, among other historical characters, Trump is his in the pages of his autobiography:
The most notable is that even a critical article can be valuable for business, although it works personally “
Good advertising is preferable to bad, but bad advertising is sometimes better than any advertising. In a word, the controversy sells “
Putin and the Ukraine War
Trump has not hidden his harmony with Vladimir Putin and has opened negotiations with Kremlin to end the Ukraine War, giving a 180 -degree turn to the proucranian and Atlantist politics of Joe Biden. Although convincing Putin is not being an easy task, the Republican explained that he likes to negotiate with hard typesas has done a lifetime in the New York real estate business:
You have to deal with some of the most cunning, inflexible and worse intentional individuals in the world. Coincidentally, I like to face people of that species, and I love to beat them in their own land “
It also records your interest for expanding your businesses to the Russian market. In fact, he talks about a trip he made in 1987 to Moscow with his first wife, Ivana, to build a hotel in the still Soviet capital. Trump has never turned his back on Russia:
It was an extraordinary experience.
We visit half a dozen possible locations for a hotel, even
Several near the Red Square “
Gaza, the Riviera de Oriente Portos
The New York tycoon has launched the bizarre idea of converting the Gaza Strip into a kind of Riviera from the Middle East, full of hotels, resorts and golf fields next to the Mediterranean. There is no doubt that Gaza’s site is privileged, but it is hard to believe that someone raises a similar project in a region destroyed by the war and sown with corpses, that without taking into account that it would imply the expulsion of 2 million of Palestinians.
The distance between Gaza and Manhattan is sidereal in every way, but Trump is accustomed as a real estate promoter to revitalize or build in depressed areas of New York and dreams of moving that experience to Gaza. Thus he remembers, for example, his purchase of the Commodore Hotel in 1976, when he was a rickety establishment and lost a lot of money in a city of skyscrapers mired in a deep economic crisis.
The desperate situation of the city was my most powerful weapon. No other promoter would even think about buying a hotel ruined in an area come to less than a city in decline “
Needless to say, after the acquisition and subsequent reform made by Trump, the old commodore became the Grand Hyatt New Yorka successful hotel in the heart of Manhattan that reported benefits.
