“The president masters the art of the deal. He is a negotiator-in-chief,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News last month, referring to Donald Trump’s efforts to put pressure on Ukraine and Russia to agree a ceasefire.
Leavitt was nodding to Trump’s 1987 business bestseller, Trump: The Art of the Deal. The book runs through a series of property deals that Trump, then a brash young developer, was working on in the late 1980s, illustrating his dealmaking approach.
As US president, Trump is now wielding tariffs, foreign policy, executive orders and regulatory changes to shock trading partners, government institutions and companies to change their stance. But do dealmakers, diplomats and officials believe the negotiating tactics he claimed helped him succeed in business have any merit?