Irregular: What’s the deal with Trump?
Trump’s worldview – and what it means for business.
In this week’s Irregular, I share some insights we have been giving our corporate clients in executive and board briefings since Donald Trump’s election – an assessment of the president’s unique worldview and approach to international affairs, as well as a series of strategic questions that boards and executives should dwell upon in light of a rapidly changing role of the United States in the world.
Bizarre-a-Lago
Most business leaders I have spoken with over the past few months have been flummoxed by Donald Trump. After all, the president’s strategic goals, negotiation tactics and manner of talking about and conducting diplomacy are in many ways radically different from past American presidents and most world leaders. Whether interpreting his tariff threats, his seeming claims to Canada and Greenland, his courting of Putin, his heated and public exchange with Zelensky, or his proposal to take an “ownership position” on Gaza, almost everyone has asked themselves: “what’s the deal with Trump?”
Much commentary, among Western elites at least, has drawn significant conclusions. Many consider that Trump has upended the international rules-based order, that the transatlantic alliance is on life support, that NATO has been liquidated, that the United States has thrown Ukraine under the bus and sided instead with Russia, and that the president’s tariff proposals amount to the end of the multilateral trading system.
No doubt some of these outcomes are possible, or even probable. Trump has undoubtedly a different vision of American foreign policy to most leaders since the end of World War II and an unorthodox style of diplomacy. But, so far, the feared outcomes have not yet arrived, and many remain unlikely, even if profound changes are afoot.
Rather than divining Trump’s intentions on various specific issues, or taking a position on the cumulative effect of his approach on international relations, right now, it is more useful to prepare while also attempting to discover Trump’s broader worldview. Understanding President Trump’s motivations and his modus operandi provides both a general framework for how he may approach the issues already on the agenda — from Ukraine to trade and China and the Middle East — but also the many others that will inevitably present themselves over the next four years.
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Trump World
So, how does Trump see the world?
Above all, Trump defines himself as a master deal-maker. As he said during his recent press conference with Emmanuel Macron, “That’s what I do. I do deals. My whole life is deals. That’s all I know, it’s deals. We’re working on deals right now, transactions”. Or, as he said sitting next to Volodymyr Zelensky before things went south, “That’s what I do my whole life. That’s what I do, is make deals”.
Trump has tremendous faith in his ability to strike deals that others will respect and abide by. What makes Trump special, according to Trump, is his deal-making. And he appears bent on bringing his supposed deal-making prowess to renegotiate the terms of America’s engagement with the world.
In line with this overarching self-image, Trump views relationships between nations as quid-pro-quo bargains to be struck, renegotiated or abandoned if not favourable. Returning to office, Trump seems to have assessed that most of these bilateral relationships are unfair deals for the United States.
Allies, especially in Europe, have been freeloading on defence, with the United States paying more than its fair share to NATO. Ukraine, ungrateful for the Biden administration’s (“stupid”) unconditional support, should pay for American protection. Mexico and Canada have “mistreated” and “taken advantage of” the United States in trade, as have the many countries that run a trade surplus with the United States. And some deals previous administrations had signed up to – like the Paris Agreement on climate change and the OECD tax treaty – not only insufficiently delivered for Americans but harmed the interests of the United States.
Trump seems to be systematically reviewing the United States’ deals with the world. As he said during his press conference with Macron, “I look at some of these agreements and I read them at night and say who would ever sign a thing like this”.
Having decided that most nations have got the better of the United States (under previous “incompetent” and “not very smart” administrations), Trump has instructed his trade officials to assess precisely how badly each country treats the United States with a view to imposing “reciprocal” tariffs. These tariffs will be imposed not so much out of any protectionist impulse, desire to “reshore” manufacturing or anti-trade agenda, but to restore fairness in America’s relations with the world. And the balance-of-trade – surpluses and deficits – is the key metric defining whether a bilateral economic relationship is a “good” or a “bad” deal for America.
Veil of Ignorance
In trade, deficits are shorthand for unfairness. More generally, Trump considers unfairness to arise where other countries export problems to the United States (drugs, crime, migration) or where counter-parties are not paying the right price. Historical ties, shared values, and similar political systems are all good and well – and he has several times recently reiterated both the transatlantic alliance and his commitment to NATO – but they alone are not enough to earn American protection or allow a country to hurt the American people or discriminate against its businesses without paying for it.
Trump’s general approach to rectifying perceived unfairness is to make foreign nations pay the right price. When it comes to trade, as he said when with Macron, “All we want is reciprocal. All we want is reciprocity. We want to have the same. So if someone charges us, we charge them. It’s very simple”. And when he speaks of other NATO members not pulling their weight, what he says he wants is “equivalence”.
This focus on fairness, reciprocity and equivalence is central to Trump’s worldview. It’s the guiding principle behind why he wants NATO members to increase defence spending, why he wants to place tariffs on foreign countries, and why he wants Ukraine to pay America back for its support during the war. For Trump, since the world is largely one of unfair legacy deals requiring rectification, it makes sense to deal with countries directly. Or, as he put it in his book “Think Big”: “my motto is: Always get even. When somebody screws you, screw them back in spades”.
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Dressing Down
Trump’s aggressive approach to restitution stems not from disliking foreign nations or pride in his own: “I’m not even blaming the other countries that did this. I blame our leadership for allowing this to happen. Who can blame them if they made these great deals with the US and took advantage of the US on just about everything”. Trump does not hate Canadians or Ukrainians, although his personal relationships with leaders like Trudeau and Zelensky do play into how much he will use public taunts in an attempt to give the United States a “better hand”.
Trump’s preference to work bilaterally is not primarily driven by a desire to avoid being constrained by supranational organisations or some antipathy to a “rules-based order” or particular foreign nations. As he said in his press conference with Macron, “I’m not even blaming the other countries that did this. I blame our leadership for allowing this to happen. Who can blame them if they made these great deals with the US and took advantage of the US on just about everything.” Rather, engaging with countries one-on-one is the natural corollary of a worldview focused on fixing unfair bilateral deals.
Trump’s overtures to Russia might best be seen in a similar light. While many have argued that Trump has an affinity for autocrats like Putin, has sided with Russia over Ukraine, and has in the process overturned world order as we know it, the better explanation for Trump reaching out to Putin is simply that — in Trump’s mind — America has problems with Russia that must be solved, that these can only be solved through a deal, and only bilaterally.
Trump seems to believe — perhaps rightly — that deference, flattery and shows of respect are the most effective ways to get “strong leaders” like Putin and Xi to the bargaining table and ultimately strike an accord. He said as much in his press conference with Zelensky responding to a journalist’s question: “You want me to say really terrible things about Putin and then say, ‘Hi, Vladimir. How are we going on the deal?’ That doesn’t work that way.”
While Trump may find it useful to lambast, demean and humiliate “weaker leaders”, Trump assesses such tactics will not get him very far with leaders whose preconditions for negotiation are respectful treatment and over whom he otherwise has little leverage. Trump knows that Putin only wants to deal with the president of the United States and that the war in Ukraine will only be solved by first ironing out longstanding issues in the US-Russia bilateral relationship. Trump is speaking to Putin one-on-one not out of admiration for autocrats but out of necessity.
Trump’s style of deal-making, as he wrote in The Art of the Deal, “is quite simple and straightforward. I aim very high and then I just keep pushing and pushing and pushing to get what I’m after”. Many of Trump’s policy proposals – such as high tariff rates – are more opening gambits than reflections of realistic “landing zones”, and while he will keep pushing for the best possible outcome (in his mind), he will also walk back proposals to get an agreement. His gambits, much like his rhetoric, are largely about creating leverage.
As he also wrote in The Art of the Deal, “Leverage: don’t make deals without it. Enhance it” and “sometimes, part of making a deal is denigrating your competition” (a ploy recently on display).
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Pair of Suits
Beyond recalibrating America’s relations with the world, Trump seems to have developed an obsession with making peace deals. As he said when with Macron, “I hope my greatest legacy will be as a peacemaker and a unifier. I want to bring peace, not war… Under our administration, we are forging a new path that promotes peace around the world”. Or with Zelensky, “I hope I’m going to be remembered as a peacemaker… I’m here as an arbitrator, as a mediator… so all I can do is see if I can get everybody at the table and get an agreement”. This matters greatly in understanding Trump’s priorities in his final term: since he wants his legacy to bring peace to Ukraine and the Middle East, this will be a first-order priority for his administration.
Trump’s transactional diplomacy — even if it is explicable — is discombobulating because it is very different from the institutional vision most American presidents have tended to hold since World War II. And its consequences remain to be seen.
There are serious risks in Trump’s bilateral approach, his opportunism and speed, his cultivation of uncertainty and creation of leverage, his dispensing with diplomatic protocol, and his repudiation of the normative language around values, alliances and institutions. One is that if deals do indeed get done, they may not necessarily be “good” ones. The Western alliance could fracture. Trust between the United States and virtually every country will likely diminish (and be hard to restore). “Quick and dirty” deals, including on Ukraine, may involve compromising sacrosanct international laws, such as the prohibition on the use of force, the requirement that instigators of unjust wars pay reparations for the damage inflicted, and justice served for war crimes. And, should any “grand bargains” with Russia or China involve an explicit or tacit recognition of “spheres of influence”, this may well reduce tensions between the great powers but leave bordering states at risk and middle powers at sea.
Collateral Damage
There are more immediate and more likely outcomes, at least for businesses operating across borders.
At the macro level, Trump’s emphasis on reciprocity and tariffs will inevitably affect trade flows, though the magnitude is uncertain and likely overstated. Tariffs are just one factor shaping cross-border commerce; currency fluctuations, shipping costs, and inflation often exert a greater influence on supply chains. While some sectors may be hit hard, the reality is more nuanced than headlines suggest, and predictions of a drastic reshaping of global trade should be met with caution.
At the firm level, however, there will be greater impacts. American importers will face new costs, prompting questions about whether these can be passed on to consumers or must instead erode profit margins. Some of this burden might be offset by lower corporate tax rates, though impacts will vary widely by industry and individual supply chains. American companies exporting, on the other hand, could see a short-term boost under “fairer” trading conditions – but if Trump’s unilateral approach undermines international norms over the longer term, the very system that has helped US multinationals dominate globally might weaken.
For foreign businesses, the upshot of Trump’s transactional diplomacy will depend largely on both their home governments’ willingness to protect key industries and the United States’ selection of sectors it deems critical—steel, aluminum, semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, and autos, among others. So far, China has responded with measured, reciprocal tariffs and selective scrutiny of US tech firms, and we expect them to maintain this approach until they see what they may be able to extract from Trump’s desire for a “grand bargain”. European nations are largely united on increasing defence spending to meet Trump’s demands but less so on whether to fight fire with fire on trade or largely accept reciprocal tariffs. Either way, European firms are starting to live with uncertainty hovering over the transatlantic relationship.
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Getting to Nyet
Trump’s zeal for “making deals” with notional adversaries—from Russia and China to perhaps Iran—will also have business impacts should it prompt a thaw in relations and lead to the lifting of sanctions, which could re-open markets to Western investment. But this will largely depend on whether any deals with the great powers result in enduring agreements or descend into further brinkmanship. After all, Trump was equally keen to reset US-Russia relations at the start of his first term, but this proved impossible.
Overall, Trump’s transactional approach continues to generate flux and uncertainty, and businesses would do well to prepare for abrupt shifts—and occasional opportunities—as the administration recalibrates America’s economic ties around the world. The handwringing that all international rules are doomed or that “the new sheriff in town” (per JD Vance) is a “hard” bargaining partner certainly carries risks for businesses but unlikely spells the end of globalisation.
Trump’s self-proclaimed deal-making prowess will soon be put to the test. While Trump appears convinced that Putin wants to end the war, there are serious reasons to doubt this. The Kremlin has the military momentum, knows the United States’ support for Ukraine is wavering, and considers it has time on its side. Ukraine, which must be part of any peace deal, will not agree to any deal without robust security guarantees, while Europe is unable and the United States unwilling to provide these, at least in the form sought by Ukraine. And Trump could also be making a cardinal negotiation error with Russia by telegraphing his desire to get a deal done “asap” and showing his own red lines.
And so it may ultimately be as Trump himself, or at least his ghostwriter in the Art of the Deal, said: “You can’t con people, at least not for long. You can create excitement, you can do wonderful promotion and get all kinds of press, and you can throw in a little hyperbole. But if you don’t deliver the goods, people will eventually catch on”.
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Kind regards,
Damien
Damien Bruckard
CEO, Geopolitical Strategy
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