The art of the bluff

[Midnightwalk]

These two paragraphs summarize trump’s negotiating style.

As losses from his core enterprises mounted, Mr. Trump took on a new public role, trading on his business-titan brand to present himself as a corporate raider. He would acquire shares in a company with borrowed money, suggest publicly that he was contemplating buying enough to become a majority owner, then quietly sell on the resulting rise in the stock price.

The tactic worked for a brief period — earning Mr. Trump millions of dollars in gains — until investors realized that he would not follow through. That much has been known for years. But the tax information obtained by The Times shows that he ultimately lost the bulk of the gains from his four-year trading spree.

Bluff and bluster and take whatever he can get. Whichever side runs out of options first loses.

The problem now is he has recourse to executive orders domestically and that and more internationally. Still, China, North Korea and Iran have all called his bluff in the past week.

I’d say we’re winning the same way trump was winning when he lost the billion dollars.