How to negotiate with Trump and WIN

The 4 traps world leaders are falling in, and what they should do instead

Abstract

Donald Trump’s approach to negotiation upheaved international affairs, marking a radical change to previous decades of global diplomacy and leaving world leaders without a consistent approach to negotiating with him, which is dangerous given the power the president of the United States yields. Operating under overly simplistic negotiation models, most world leaders have failed to diagnose and understand Trump’s approach and tactics properly and have unfortunately responded in suboptimal ways, exacerbating the problems Trump is causing.

In this paper, we explain in detail Trump’s negotiation strategy and how it is used (sometimes successfully) in the business world by negotiators with strong power advantages. We further explain Trump’s perspective on power, value, and fairness and how it is at odds with that of current Western leaders. Understanding Trump’s high-profile negotiation style may influence others, making it increasingly likely that even everyday negotiators will face counterparts who emulate his approach.

We analyze how these gaps can be mended by those negotiating with Trump. We then explain most world leaders’ incomplete negotiation thought process and how it leads to the four common mistakes in dealing with Trump. Finally, we end this paper by providing the three key pieces of advice to negotiate with Trump differently, leading to much more valuable and safer negotiations.

Introduction

This article was written in response to many people asking us in the past few weeks: “So, how does one negotiate with Trump successfully?” Our audiences told us that our ideas came across as politically neutral, based on an accurate diagnosis, and delivering insightful and practical recommendations, which was our ambition with such a politically sensitive topic. As a result, we have been encouraged to write this piece to help negotiators worldwide make sense of how Trump negotiates, why and when his approach may work or not, and how one can negotiate successfully with him or someone like him. We believe this is relevant even for the everyday negotiator, as the visibility of Trump’s negotiation style may inspire many to emulate it—raising the likelihood that others will increasingly encounter Trump-influenced negotiators. We have leveraged our decades-long experience supporting clients in low-power positions negotiating with very powerful and aggressive counterparties to provide you with our best advice.

At moments, when we highlight the theoretical benefits or reasons behind Trump’s methods, it may seem we are supporting his negotiation approach, goals, or political views. We are not supporting any of that, nor are we criticizing. Our role as negotiation experts is to help readers get into Trump’s negotiation mind and see things from his likely perspective (Neale and Bazerman 1983; Galinsky et al. 2008). From his point of view, he probably sees himself as making good negotiation choices, and we need to understand how he sees things if we are to recommend how to negotiate with him. We acknowledge that these parts could distract or generate strong resistance from the reader who strongly opposes Trump, his methods, his politics, or his goals. We invite you to venture into the minds and hearts of those you do not understand and disagree with so that you can better negotiate with them whenever needed.

We are two win-win negotiation professors and advisors, normally teaching and advising on the opposite end of Trump’s negotiation methods (Falcão 2011). However, not supporting his approach does not mean we should remain ignorant about it, dismiss its potential risks and benefits, or have the luxury of not negotiating with Trump or other negotiators like him (Mnookin 2011). Ultimately, we aim to help readers understand Trump’s methods and become empowered with the knowledge to negotiate ethically the best possible outcome with him or anyone else with large power advantages who adopts similar tactics (Shell 2010).

This article starts by explaining Trump’s method and mind, followed by advice on what not to do and, finally, what to do. Notice that we are not advising on how to beat Trump but rather on how to get a good deal while negotiating with him or those theoretically similar to him (Fisher, Ury, and Patton 2011). We are also not discussing here whether you should or not negotiate with Trump, but rather assume that you will, by choosing so, or having no choice. For simplicity’s sake, for the rest of the article, we will refer to Trump as himself but also as the representative of a hard bargainer with a large power advantage. The negotiation advice contained below is expected to work even if Trump were to read this article, as we suggest an anti-fragile negotiation approach that will work equally well even if the other side knows what we are doing (Taleb 2012).

Understanding Trump’s hard bargaining approach

What is he actually doing?

Donald Trump often follows the hard bargaining approach (Kogan 2019), which heavily relies on the algorithm below, which we expanded from the seminal negotiation book Getting to Yes (Fisher, Ury, and Patton 2011):

1. Assess if you have a sufficiently large power advantage:

a. Attempt to increase your power over the counterparty at any acceptable cost for you. Negotiations are not about abstract rights or ethics but the reality of power.

b. If you do not have enough power advantage or are at a disadvantage despite your best efforts to improve your power, negotiate using a different, much more collaborative approach (note: not covered in this article).

2. Make the power advantage clear to the counterparty, often through threats (BATNA) or other power displays. In the case of having many negotiations in front of you:

a. Knock on as many doors as you can to test the waters of what is negotiable, assume everything is up for negotiation, and that the worst that can happen is to stay at the same place (not necessarily true, but how many hard bargainers operate), aim for big, splashy wins to build on your reputation and help your constituents forget or not pay attention to the ones you lose.

b. Start by making early shows of power (e.g., issue threats) to project dominance. Those who jump higher or faster than others are those most afraid, thus signaling they may have a higher power disadvantage. Engage them first. The threats can be about inflicting pain against the counterparty or cutting their access to potential gains.

c. Play the “Mad Dog” game-theory strategy by deliberately acting unpredictably to disrupt expectations and, at times, create a blank slate for the negotiation. Your seemingly crazy moves raise uncertainty and fear, disorient counterparties, and induce others to make mistakes, which may translate into others giving you more concessions.

d. Quickly attack, double down, and, whenever possible, punish those who challenge or stand up against you, especially if done publicly.

3. Make a first, extreme, potentially unrealistic demand (e.g., we want Greenland, Canada should be a US state, etc.)

a. Shoot for the moon to leverage the anchoring bias to gain more concessions.

b. Leverage the shock value and generate extreme fear in the counterparties so that they will give maximum concessions and still feel like winners just by avoiding the worst-case scenario (your anchor).

c. Give yourself room to look magnanimous by splitting in the “middle” after a tense negotiation battle.

4. Meet to negotiate. Behave arrogantly and adopt a superior, confident stance. Become aggressive and emotional if the counterparty resists but friendly when they give in to your demands.

5. Secure whatever value gained at the negotiation table, usually much lower than your anchor or first demands. In the process, make small, decreasing concessions as if they were huge efforts and demand always more in return, using more and more power as needed to push the other to their bottom line (reservation price).

6. If all goes well, make a public speech claiming victory and praising one’s negotiation prowess while also thanking and flattering the other negotiator. If there is no deal, either show strength by publicly walking away and blaming the counterparty for the collapse of the negotiation or let the negotiation be forgotten by the public so as not to be seen as failing.

The above algorithm is an extremely simple approach to negotiation, focusing on applying power (threats, coercion, lies, etc.) to obtain value. Indeed, the typical hard bargainer approach consists of effectively and directly applying one’s power advantage to extract value from the counterparty without much consideration for the relationship or the other’s perception of fairness. Hence, hard bargainers are most successful when they enjoy a large power advantage over their counterparties. Given that most negotiators do not consistently have large power advantages, if they opt for a hard bargaining style, they are more likely to end up with a no deal, destroying value or generating conflict.

However, the President of the United States of America (POTUS) has a large power advantage over most counterparties. Indeed, Trump occupies a seat of great power, as the POTUS is an outlier seat in terms of power compared to almost anyone else in the world. In sum, the POTUS position empowers whoever occupies it to use hard bargaining methods with a much higher chance of success than just about anyone else or other positions. Given his power superiority over most, Trump will likely secure some large wins with his hard bargaining approach. Conversely, given the contextual, dynamic, and thus volatile nature of power, Trump also risks winning some deals at the cost of some equally large losses or unpredictable negative, long-term consequences.

Trump seems to be very aware of the power variable in negotiation. If we were to compare the Trump we saw in his first mandate with the one we are seeing now, it seems that he is bolder and using even more aggressive tactics now than before. This is theoretically consistent as he had less political knowledge and power during his first mandate than he has now after securing a clear election victory and having the US Congress, Senate, and Supreme Court on his side.

But does he not care at all about fairness?

Before continuing, it is important to distinguish three concepts that are usually confused by most people and quite fundamental to understanding negotiation. Below we build upon the Interests, Rights, and Power (IRP) model from Ury, Brett, and Goldberg (1988), on which we offer our own reinterpretation to elucidate the Trump negotiation approach:^[1]

· Power is the ability to force others to do what they would prefer not to do (Kim, Pinkley, and Fragale 2005).

· Value (interests) is the satisfaction of interests (e.g., wants, needs, desires, fears, risks, concerns), what the sides ultimately pursue in a negotiation.

· Fairness (rights) is a subjective feeling of what the sides deserve. It can apply to the outcomes of the negotiation (distributive), its process (procedural), relationship (interactional) (Colquitt et al. 2001), and others. In each of these, there are different criteria that the various sides use to assess what is fair or not (Albin 1993).

Trump’s negotiation approach is focused on increasing value for his side through the use of power, thus prioritizing distributive fairness at the expense of its other forms. His approach clashes with a historically recent Western view focusing mostly on rights, procedural, and interactional fairness.

There are, however, two key challenges with the concept of fairness that are extremely relevant to understanding Trump’s negotiation approach. The first is that power and value tend to dominate fairness in negotiations (Brett, Shapiro, and Lytle 1998). It is not that fairness is unimportant, but it is a belief, whereas power and value are real. It is hard to claim or implement fairness if there is a strong higher opposing power or insufficient value for all (Kim and Fragale 2005). It becomes even worse if we disregard the fairness perspective of the higher opposing power (Mnookin and Kornhauser 1979; Cheng 2009).

The second issue with fairness is its subjectivity. Many argue that Trump does not care about fairness. That may be true regarding procedural or interactional fairness (rules, rights, respect) or some views on distributive fairness, such as needs-based fairness. However, he does adhere to a business-like sense of fairness, probably shaped by his professional experience: those who contribute more should also receive more. If someone provides significant value, that someone deserves significant compensation. If others fail to reciprocate, Trump sees no obligation to continue his end of any bargain or transaction.

Like a large buyer negotiating volume discounts, Trump believes the US should gain advantages in exchange for granting access to its profitable market. After all, when China opened its economy, it required foreign companies to form joint ventures and share technology to gain access to its vast market and low-cost labor, and all countries obliged. Trump questions why others hold the US to a different standard when he attempts to impose conditions on foreigners to access the US market. He complains that China and Europe restrict US imports, creating trade imbalances detrimental to the US economy as they benefit from the more open US market.

Similarly, given that the US promotes free trade and global security and thus funds the bulk of NATO, the WHO, and other global initiatives, he expects gratitude, influence, or increased contributions from others. Instead, he sees other nations free-riding on US contributions, feeling entitled to them, or even acting against US interests. If the benefits of these institutions to the US disappear or greatly diminish, he questions why the US should continue financing them.

Trump believes the American people have been on the losing end of an unfair global exchange that evolved over decades due to US negotiation complacency. Trump sees this as a crisis demanding urgent, drastic action—hence his "Make America Great Again" slogan. He believes US living standards are eroding and that American taxpayers do not reap the rewards of US global leadership, as benefits go to elite industries and Democratic areas like California or the East Coast.

In his mind, he is trying to do zero-based budgeting (ZBB) and due diligence of all negotiations and partnerships the US has entered to reassess if they are still worthy, profitable, and aligned with US interests. This logic is consistent with what most companies would adopt anywhere in the world if they saw that they were losing money or market power. While some reject this transactional view of fairness, it still follows a certain logic, albeit a transactional one, that speaks to his voters and other supporters worldwide.

Negotiators wanting to close a deal with someone who thinks or feels that way must acknowledge the counterparty's views—even when they disagree or accept the increased risk of a no-deal outcome (Albin 1993). Fairness arguments are often subjective and emotionally charged, leading to biased and less fruitful discussions (Blader et al. 2013). Instead, expert negotiators prefer to focus on legitimacy—the search for a logical, agreed-upon method for allocating value in a deal. Legitimacy allows parties to accept an outcome as reasonable, even if not ideal, reducing the risk of deadlock over rigid, emotional claims of fairness.

Ultimately, while Trump's approach may appear unfair to many, he believes he is correcting an unfairness. For example, his frustration extends to US military interventions, which he considers unnecessary and costly, as seen by his ordered withdrawal from Afghanistan, his role in the Gaza ceasefire, and his mediation of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, even if controversial. Ultimately, he prioritizes outcomes (distributive fairness) over processes (procedural fairness), believing that unfair methods are justified if they fix a system that has failed Americans for too long.

Understanding someone's legitimacy does not require agreeing with it. However, acknowledging the counterparty's perspective is essential for success in any negotiation, and even more so when your counterparty is much more powerful than you, as is the case when negotiating with Trump.

But doesn’t hard bargaining backfire, at least in the long term?

Indeed, most people believe that hard bargaining backfires in the long term. Hard bargaining can risk overreliance on power or misestimating the parties’ negotiating power. Given how hard it is to anticipate which kind of and how much power will be needed to make the difference in a negotiation, hard bargaining can be very volatile and unpredictable (Kim, Pinkley, and Fragale 2005). Besides, people behave in all sorts of ways when pressured, under threat, or at risk of losing what they find valuable. As a result, many hard bargainers rush into misusing their power in negotiations just to fail or get stuck in unwinnable conflicts.

Unlike common belief, hard bargaining does not always backfire and can be a somewhat sustainable negotiation strategy. If the power advantage is large enough and sustainable over time, the hard bargaining approach can also work in the long term (Falcão 2011). For example, large retailers can squeeze their suppliers year after year if they maintain their market dominance and the suppliers continue to rely on them to distribute their products and make money.

Alternatively, if someone does not care about the future or is poorly estimating future risks, they are likely to choose a hard-bargaining approach under the mistaken assumption that it will yield net positive results going forward. While this does not mean that hard bargaining doesn’t backfire, it does influence the negotiator’s choice for a hard-bargaining approach.

Does he even care about relationships?

Of course he cares, but he builds and measures relationships differently than most other people or politicians (Greenhalgh 1987). Trump’s moral compass and relationships are driven more by loyalty to him (Kogan 2019). He cares about his ingroup and actually uses the outgroup as an external threat to enhance the internal sense of cohesion and identity (Lee 2005; Van Kleef et al. 2007; Pollack et al. 2022). Notice that we are not talking about the US versus other countries only but also Republicans versus Democrats inside the US.

He also believes that each person or country has the right to act in their best interests, such as avoid losses and feel safe. In such pursuit, he accepts the use of whatever tools at your disposal, such as power, and dismisses the value of norms (e.g., the ends justify the means), sanctity, caring, and looking like an overall “good person.” He prefers to be seen as strong, feared, respected, as well as crazy, irrational, or courageous enough to make you believe his threats and keep you guessing consistently with his hard bargainer approach.

If we consider Haidt’s moral framework (Haidt 2012), Trump’s moral compass clashes with both liberal and traditional conservative moral preferences. As a result, his approach to relationships and alliances makes them more individualistic, as people attach to him seeking a charismatic or populist leader. Yet, somewhat contradictorily, the relationships are also based on a hierarchical respect for his authority and power.

Why do almost all other politicians around the world act so differently?

Since the end of the Cold War, the superpowers did not have an openly hostile relationship. We have all been under the Pax Americana, and no real war existed among the big players. As such, overt power displays have been frowned upon to the point that some wrongly assumed power has become unnecessary and gone extinct as a negotiation variable in international relations (Deutsch et al. 1957). Diplomats and politicians, as always, adapted to the new status quo (Ikenberry 2001).

Besides, in the international arena, there are two other aspects we need to consider that make it more challenging for a hard bargainer: the negotiations are partially public/visible for everyone else to see, even more so nowadays with the abundance of news and information (Gilboa 2000), and no one country is currently more powerful than a coalition of all, most, or even just many other countries, including the US (Nye 1990). This makes the hard bargaining approach much less effective because:

· The failed negotiations of the hard bargainer are likely to become public, emboldening future counterparties to also take chances and challenge the hard bargainer’s power, thus slowly eroding the hard approach’s effectiveness (Fearon 1994) and

· Even the most powerful hard bargainer may eventually provoke the formation of stronger, opposing coalitions that diminish or end his power advantage (Pape 2005).

As such, international negotiators increasingly moved away from hard bargaining but continued using power dynamics in different ways. Diplomacy in the 19^th century was still driven by a balance-of-power approach, which started to erode with World War I. After World War II, international diplomacy definitely pivoted towards the rules-based order and multilateral institutions we see today (Milner and Moravcsik 2009), though power politics remained an underlying factor in global negotiations.

The rules-based order of the 20^th and early 21^st centuries has a key flaw when it comes to negotiations: it can create false expectations based on a sense of self-righteous, superior legitimacy, particularly among smaller players. These states may assume that because a rule exists—whether related to rights, equality, or international cooperation—they are entitled to its benefits no matter the costs to others. However, when enforcing such rules imposes high costs on powerful countries, those countries may resist, selectively apply the rules, or find ways to circumvent them.

This led to a pre-Trump era where the rules-based order remained on the surface, but power was frequently exercised through double standards, selective rule enforcement, tariff deployment, blocks to market access, unequal burden- or cost-sharing, gradual scope creep and partnership imbalances, free-riding, controlling narratives, secret operations, raising hidden barriers to competition, and employing manipulation, lies, and empty promises (Krasner 1999). These are hallmarks of soft bargaining (Falcão 2011)– not to be confused with soft power (Nye 1990; 2004; Wilson 2008; Walker 2018) ^{[2] [3]}— a negotiation style where obtaining advantages over others through power is still pursued but done covertly and indirectly. The soft bargaining power moves include manipulating, lying or distorting the perception of the other, playing tricks, etc. While the hard bargainer coerces the counterparty into accepting an undesirable deal, the soft bargainer deceives them into accepting what seems like an attractive offer—but that will turn out to be far worse than it appears.

Soft bargaining can be perceived as particularly adequate for those who are constantly in the media. It allows politicians or other public negotiators to build a public narrative of being on the good side and having the moral high ground while taking advantage of the counterparty behind the scenes. Unlike hard bargaining, where power struggles are open and explicit (as in “America First”), soft bargaining can be more destabilizing because it disguises the continued use of power to solve differences as opposed to seeking reason-based, mutually agreeable solutions. In a world where the public perception was greatly against any overt power move, negotiators evolved to apply power covertly.

If diplomatic history rejected hard bargaining, does it make sense for Trump to bring it back now?

It is difficult to say whether bringing back hard bargaining into diplomatic negotiations is the right approach, but there is a clear logic behind it. First, no country in the last few centuries has accumulated as much power superiority as the US in the past 30 years, giving Trump the key prerequisite to making his hard bargaining effective. Second, as the world shifted toward soft bargaining, it created opportunities for hard bargainers to thrive (Dür and Mateo 2010). Hard bargaining requires less skill to leverage power effectively against a soft bargainer than vice versa.

Like the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés and his 500 men faced an Aztec empire of hundreds of thousands; he used firearms, steel weapons, cavalry, and local alliances against the Aztec's traditional warfare and diplomatic protocols. Just as a gun requires less skill than a sword to dominate a battle, Cortés' forces did not need to match the Aztecs in numbers or traditional combat ability—they just needed to apply their blunt, superior tools strategically.

In our world, where soft bargainers have mostly forgotten how to negotiate with hard bargainers, Trump, like Cortés, will face little or ineffective resistance until they catch up to him. Besides, Trump seems to know the shortcomings of his bargaining style, given that he adapts according to his power advantage. He quickly avoids multilateral negotiations to avoid facing an opposing coalition, and seeks bilateral talks where the US has the upper hand (Kogan 2019; Janusch and Lorberg 2020). He also avoids using hard bargaining on leaders of countries over whom he does not have a clear and sustainable power advantage, as seen by how differently he negotiates with Putin on military topics.

Either way, whether hard bargaining is a good or bad strategy for Trump, other negotiators must be able to negotiate with Trump for the next years despite their power disadvantage. This is an important crossroads at which we must make a critical strategic choice: Do we want to beat him, or do we want to win? (Falcão 2011)Below, we argue for the latter (with the exception for negotiators who can really balance their power vis a vis Trump) and show how to do it.

So, how do I negotiate with Trump?

Trump’s boastful manners and general demeanor may lead many to hate, fear, or underestimate him. That is very problematic, as Trump’s counterparties have been negotiating under those emotions or perceptions, aiming to mitigate them rather than pursuing the best outcomes for themselves and their constituents.

As you will notice, our core advice is that fighting fire with fire is a losing strategy when in a lower power position. The rationale is that in this context, our fire is likely to burn out sooner, leaving us with nothing but ashes. Unfortunately, fighting fire with fire is the intuitive approach for most people. That is probably why we see so many world leaders failing miserably in their interactions with Trump since 2016 and how many still seem lost when negotiating with him.

Don’ts

1. Don’t disregard the power difference.

Ignoring, showing indifference, or dismissing Trump’s power advantage has been the most common mistake we see others committing when negotiating with him. Power is very important in a negotiation, especially for a hard bargainer.

Reasons behind this mistake: There are many reasons behind this mistake, hence making it so common, including:

· ignorance of how important power is.

· ignorance of their real power disadvantage against Trump or the US.

· believing, or pretending to believe, their own narrative that only Trump is using his hard power against them, ignoring how they use their own dissimulated power against him and others

· being a prisoner of their own hard bargaining style, prioritizing looking tough in front of voters or constituents so that they can’t negotiate any different even when the tables are turned against them.

· suffering from cognitive dissonance and choosing to believe that power is something you may obtain by behaving tough and showing no fear, thus confusing bravado or courage with power.

· wishful thinking that they are entitled to an equal standing and that negotiations must always rely on fairness, not power.

· misunderstanding the negotiation learnings behind Tit-for-Tat and deluding themselves into believing they should fight fire with fire.

· confusing Trump’s hard bargaining approach with him only understanding the language of power, and thus wrongly assuming that using power back is the only way he will respect, understand, and give in to them.

· choosing to belittle Trump, claiming that he is always bluffing, or gambling that he will buy their bluff.

Consequences: Whatever the reason and the flavor in which the negotiators commit this mistake, the negotiation dynamic tends to be the following: Trump wants a high-value deal that reflects his superior power position (Smith and Insko 1987; Buunk et al. 2003; Galinsky et al. 2006). The counterparty dismisses Trump’s negotiation power advantage – either for failing to see or discount the role of power in their negotiation, insisting on resolving their differences through fairness only, or for deciding to make or threaten with retaliatory moves.

Indeed, it would be hard for Trump to obtain his desired value as quickly and cheaply if the other side wants to negotiate as equals or confrontationally. As such, to overcome his counterparty’s resistance, Trump will want to make his power advantage clearer. He has no qualms about pushing the counterparty until they cave or acknowledge the power difference and negotiate from that inferior standing. This results in a negotiation situation significantly worse than if the negotiator had acknowledged the power difference from the get-go. After all, Trump is more frustrated now, their power difference went from being accepted to being imposed, and the counterparty’s potential resistance went from unknown to being presented, then squashed and made irrelevant. Trump’s confidence in his power now is at its peak. More importantly, after the negative interactions, it becomes much harder for both sides to pivot toward collaboration and value creation. Trump will still seek to secure plenty of value for himself and those he represents, but now he will be motivated to take it all from the counterparty’s pockets.

A particularly dangerous version of this mistake is when the low-power negotiator overtly threatens to make moves to increase their power dramatically in the future, such as threatening to develop nuclear weapons or opposing coalitions. This threat has a significant risk of inviting preemptive, aggressive countermoves to reduce its likelihood or efficacy.

2. Don’t publicly make him look bad.

It is widespread knowledge that, like any hard bargainer, Trump cares about his image (Schneider, Tinsley, and Cambria 2018). Furthermore, his image matters to help him successfully negotiate future deals and keep the support of his voters. His hard bargainer reputation is a part of his power; thus, eroding his image is akin to attempting to reduce his power (Torgersen and Rivers 2005). Any move in this direction will likely invite a strong and immediate reaction from Trump or any hard bargainer. He will go to great lengths not to come across as weak, foolish, or disregarding of his voters. Yet, there are many negotiators whose approach has been based on trying to make Trump look bad publicly.

Reasons for this mistake: Many negotiators may believe that beating the hard bargainer makes them look strong and win the negotiation. For example, many politicians seek to gain popularity and respect amongst their voters, allies, or enemies by confronting Trump. Others believe they are standing their ground or showing Trump they are not afraid.

In fact, many interpret Trump’s respect when negotiating with Putin as Trump only respecting those who are harsh. That is the wrong interpretation. From his optics of power, Trump negotiates collaboratively with Putin because he leads one of the few nuclear superpowers over which Trump does not have a large power advantage. A hard bargaining approach here could lead to WWIII. Trump also does not see Putin as the US main competitor or threat, given the US superiority over Russia on so many fronts. The threat to its hegemonic status is China, thus antagonizing a powerful player like Russia could push it into China’s arms and worsen the US odds in a feared future conflict with China (Krickovic 2017; Mastanduno 2019).

For the US, and from the optics of power and value – without considering fairness – it makes total sense to end the war in Ukraine and collaborate with Russia. However, the optics of power and value have been undervalued in the West for decades, where the optic of fairness is considered the moral and important one in public discourse. As such, for the (non-Trumpian) West, the solution should be defined under the primacy of fairness. As the perceived fair solution is to restore Ukraine’s borders before 2014, irrespective of value and power, that should be the goal (Sergatskova 2023; Council of Councils 2024). The fact that this is highly unlikely to ever be achieved (lack of power) and, even if achieved, would happen at a tremendous cost (negative value) does not change the goal to be pursued. Doing so (as Trump does) is perceived as unfair and thus immoral, even when it means ending a dangerous war.

Another important aspect to understand regarding the optic of power is that power is not bravado. Trump will attempt to negotiate collaboratively with those having Putin’s power, but not with someone who displays Putin’s demeanor without the power to back it up (as in “You have no cards”) (The White House 2025). This is a critical misunderstanding from which many negotiators suffer. They believe they should emulate the behavior of the hard bargainer. They should not. If they want to emulate hard bargainers’ behaviors, they should first obtain its power. Exactly because Trump operates under the optics of power, he permanently evaluates power and is therefore less likely, not more, to be fooled by bravado.

Consequence: Having a power advantage usually means that Trump can sustain the consequences of a conflict better or longer than the other side can. It is naïve to expect that Trump will not try to restore his image by gaining one up on the negotiators who made him look bad in public or that Trump will disregard his image and prioritize solely the deal’s economics. As such, those who make Trump look bad in public are likely to pay the price later unless they are powerful enough to avoid it.

Notice that “looking bad in public” is context-dependent. Patronizing Trump, claiming that he is under Russian influence or that he will lead to the fall of the US are obviously terrible moves. However, if his foes, such as Iran, make statements that Trump is aggressive, brutal, and demanding, that makes him look strong, which he likes as it is the image he wants to convey against his enemies. Similarly, some counterparties claim to have succeeded in negotiations with Trump by targeting products from Republican states. For Trump, that looks good, as it shows to his voters that he is loyal and cares about them and that they can trust him to protect their interests.

3. Don’t measure your success by his success (or by his first proposal)

When negotiating, one should focus on getting the best deal one can, as measured by one's own, absolute measure of success (Soldà et al. 2021). The negotiator should not strive to get an outcome that is necessarily equal or split 50/50. Also, they should not compare the deal to Trump’s first position, which is an anchor aimed exactly at tilting the counterparty’s perceptions of what a good deal must look like (Tversky and Kahneman 1974; Whyte and Sebenius 1997; Loschelder et al. 2016; Lipp, Smolinski, and Kesting 2022).

Reasons for this mistake: Unexperienced negotiators may hold the naïve belief that the world and its negotiations can be forced towards or will inevitably evolve into being fair and equal. Others believe that, eventually, Trump will see it as that. Others do not know other ways of measuring success than relative to the counterparty or the current status quo. Others still go to negotiations stuck with poorly crafted relative-success mandates from their stakeholders. Finally, others get too influenced by Trump’s first proposal (the anchor) and compare the outcome to it. Some negotiators find it unacceptable if they get anything less than a 50/50 split because they wrongly associate that with being compliant with or accommodating Trump.

Consequence: Negotiating towards a 50/50 split with Trump makes one pursue a highly ambitious and unlikely goal, which forces negotiators to push and take more risks than advisable, given their low power position. Alternatively, some negotiators may do the reverse. Instead of reaching for more for themselves, they attempt to worsen the deal for Trump relative to theirs so that they look comparatively better. Both approaches raise the chances of Trump becoming more aggressive and less collaborative, leading to a smaller pie at the end of the negotiation.

Negotiating using Trump’s first proposal (the anchor) as a reference is also a terrible move, as this first proposal is aimed exactly at being so extreme that any bad deal seems good enough when compared with it.

4. Don’t focus your preparation on increasing your power.

We believe most negotiators today follow a negotiation model that recommends improving their BATNA, worsening the counterparty’s BATNA (Wheeler 2000; Fairman et al. 2012; Sebenius 2017), building coalitions (Polzer, Mannix, and Neale 1998; Sebenius 2017), and making other such power moves at least as a deterrent against stronger counterparties. In fact, many people consider that to be the fundamentals of negotiation, the only way forward, or the best way to negotiate, especially against Trump. Valid as such advice normally is, in our perspective, it is a big Don’t for most countries when negotiating with President Trump.

Are we saying that power does not matter? Absolutely not; it matters a lot. All else being equal, having more power in a negotiation is much better than not having it (Fisher 1983; Lax and Sebenius 1985; Schaerer et al. 2020). The problem is that not all else is equal: there are high costs in pursuing the preparation strategy of increasing your power to confront a much stronger hard bargainer.

In fact, this power-driven preparation could end up wrongly relying on an overly simplified negotiation model, making it very risky. To elucidate what we mean, consider the following situation: Imagine you are a country with a strong power disadvantage vis-à-vis the US. In anticipation of a negotiation with Trump, you decide to follow the strategy above, aiming at decreasing your power difference against the US. If you are like most countries in the world, you may be able to decrease the power difference slightly, but you won’t be able to completely turn the tables on them in the short term (Pape 2005). You may even be able to inflict some pain, like threatening to shut down electricity in some US states, as Canada did. However, you won’t become as powerful as the US because Trump and the US will still retain a much larger ability to withstand the longer friction and larger losses of an escalation game against you. Meanwhile, you focused your preparation on something that only brought you a marginal gain in power but not enough to beat Trump or significantly increase your odds of getting what you want.

As it is hopefully becoming clearer, relying solely on increasing power as your preparation strategy comes with several costs and risks, which we list below.

1. First, your preparations risk signaling to Trump that you are preparing for a negotiation battle. If you signal strongly and publicly enough, you may be taunting Trump for a power competition for which he will prepare accordingly. Given that he is more powerful than you, you are very likely to lose that power competition.

2. Second, by investing your preparation time thinking how to overpower Trump, you risk ignoring or underestimating how he might retaliate, fall prey to groupthink, and overestimate your real power in the negotiation.

3. Third, the current BATNA model taught in classrooms is simplified and incomplete when applied in real-life negotiations between countries. What is the BATNA in negotiations with Trump? There is a multitude of moves each side can make that are extremely hard to predict. What we can predict is that once you go down the road of coercive power on both sides, it tends to lead to escalation – that the US is likely to win. Furthermore, it disregards the fact that BATNAs dynamically evolve as escalation occurs. After Canada threatened to shut down electricity to the US, new possibilities opened for Trump to escalate, which would have been frowned upon by American citizens until then. As US citizens feel threatened by Canada’s move, they are now more likely to align behind Trump and give him even more internal power and leeway to retaliate.

The risks of focusing your preparation on this BATNA model are, therefore, quite high, so not all else is equal. It is important to clarify that we are not saying that negotiators should not consider power when preparing, as ignoring power in your preparation is also a mistake. We are also not saying that fully preparing to implement your BATNA in a potential escalation won’t ever work.

In fact, one example of how it worked well was the Russian preparation to counter Ukraine’s BATNA of relying on Western economic sanctions and military support. However, Russia was able to pull this power-focused preparation after a century of working towards increasing its power. Russia had been a powerful international and military player much before the Ukraine invasion and thus needed little to update its power to the point that it would make a significant difference. Even then, their preparation to counter Ukraine’s BATNA took them years, was clearly geared toward open confrontation as opposed to possible collaboration, required an alliance with the second-most powerful country in the world (China), and benefited from the negligent preparation of Western nations. It's not an easy preparation to emulate.

4. Fourth, by focusing on a power-based preparation, you risk wasting your limited time focusing on preparing for the wrong game. What if instead of spending the last year trying to prepare against an eventual Trump presidency, other world leaders had taken an agnostic perspective on the US Presidential election and prepared to collaborate and find solutions that would work for whoever won?

Notice that we do not mean to say that negotiators should not work towards increasing their power. Negotiators should continuously and diligently work to ensure they won’t be in a position to be forced into a bad deal by a stronger counterparty. That is fundamental risk management. It is even easier to persuade others to negotiate collaboratively if one has more power or at least the power to defend oneself.

Becoming a powerful country is a long-term process that takes consistent effort to yield results. Neglecting power-building for decades—as Europe did—only to then attempt small, last-minute power gains before negotiating with Trump is a strategic mistake. This approach not only fails to meaningfully increase leverage but also damages relationships, disregards Trump’s priorities, reduces the chances of collaboration, and, ultimately, of getting what one wants. In addition to avoiding the four don’ts above, we suggest laying the groundwork for proactive and collaborative negotiations with Trump—following the three "Dos" below.

Do’s

Let’s start by warning that one should resist the temptation to fake the best practices suggested below in an attempt to fool your counterparty. Doing so equates to soft bargaining and can greatly backfire if or when the fake move is identified by a hard bargainer with significant power over you. In other words, you will notice that our core advice below is to fight fire with water so that both turn off the heat and cool their heads toward constructive negotiations, leading to better outcomes for both (Wiltermuth, Raj, and Wood 2018).

1. Signal a clear and early intention to negotiate a good deal for Trump.

You want to signal that you are happy to go to the table and negotiate with the intention of reaching a good deal for Trump (Curhan and Pentland 2007; Cohen et al. 2022; Wiegelmann and Falcão 2024). It is understood that you are aware of the amount of power he has and that you are willing to give him a very good deal within your capabilities. In this way, Trump no longer needs to keep applying power on you to convince you. You are already helping him translate his power into value, thus signaling that you are not a threat to his goals, which he needs to overcome with his power (Lee 2005).

We anticipate that this advice can make many feel extremely uncomfortable as our intuition and limbic system push us to a fight or flight response in the face of power displays (Bracha 2004). However, we are trying to provide advice that leverages our reasoning abilities and emotional intelligence towards successful negotiations.

Once this initial signaling groundwork is done, listen and actively ask about his interests, then share yours as well. If he shares his legitimacy arguments (his transactional view of fairness), listen actively again and take note. There is no need to accept any of them at this stage, as it is too early in the process. Just acknowledge and signal collaborative intention. Then, show that you can both focus on crafting the best possible deal in a way that Trump feels no further need to talk about power and, instead, is ready to talk about value.

2. Create value for both.

After the first Do, you can engage Trump in optimizing the deal for him and also for you. He likes having that conversation because, as a businessman, he wants great, creative deals that create value for him and that can make him look good in the media. Here, Trump can actually be a preferred counterparty to more traditional government officials, who are often risk-averse and not reward-seeking and thus will shoot down great ideas just because they cannot hedge for their every risk (Bazerman, Baron, and Shonk 2001).

As you ask and understand Trump’s interests in detail, explicitly intertwine that with your interests to craft options that are very good for him while also being good for you (Sebenius 1992). When getting a good deal, Trump often offers no objection to making the deal work well for the counterparty also, as long as you are not insisting on your perspective of fairness and equality (Kogan 2019). Different from some rumors, Trump is not against value creation in negotiations. Quite the contrary, his priority is just the value he gets, so he is open to others getting value insofar as his value is secured. Plus, he likes that the people who collaborate and treat him well also win, are well-seen by their constituents, and are able to save face (Lee 2005). This behavior goes hand in hand with his appreciation for loyalty-based relationships.

Rather than thinking zero-sum and only focusing on defending what Trump is trying to take from you, reframe the negotiation as a positive sum opportunity and focus on improving the deal for Trump and you. Even if the deal turns out to be, for example, three times better for Trump than for you, it is worth it if that means getting a better deal for yourself as well, and much better than getting into a value destruction spiral with the world’s most powerful person.

3. Negotiate under the lenses of power and value.

Instead of refusing something Trump wants because “it is not fair or balanced,” or because “it is our right,” or “I will never accept that,” think about his value-potential and power advantage. If giving him what he is asking would be very costly for you, ask willingly and genuinely, as Chris Voss suggests: “How do you expect me to do that?” and explain the difficulties that must be overcome for his request to become possible (Voss and Raz 2016). You are not stubbornly refusing to give him what he wants; hence, you are not the problem he needs to bend. You are sharing the difficulties with him so he can use his large power and resources to find solutions that work for both. Like any negotiator, Trump can be proud when coming up with creative solutions or solving problems towards reaching a deal. For example, he may suggest to create value for your country in other areas of the deal so that you can then satisfy his interests.

Final considerations

Some readers may feel that we are recommending appeasing Trump. Appeasing is a word more appropriately used for bullies, people with extreme hatred, children in tantrums, or psychos or sociopaths who want to cause harm and destruction. These individuals are not pursuing value for themselves or their countries but rather want to hurt their counterparties. They are motivated by sadism, revenge, trauma, or other emotional dysregulations. As such, there is no point in collaborating with them and giving them value because they will never be satisfied, given that the goal is to hurt and not to obtain value.

That is the opposite of Trump, a clear hard bargainer focusing on increasing the value for himself and his side. He has made several moves to minimize deaths and wars, following a perspective of fairness that, while may be different from most, is neither absurd nor unique. The fact that he, as any hard bargainer, is not displeased with creating conflict and discomfort on others is insufficient to characterize him as evil or impossible to negotiate, views that we believe oversimplify who he is and thus underprepare and biases negotiators who face him.

In fact, it has become worrisomely common in the last decades in the West to assume that negotiating and reaching compromises is “appeasing” whenever we don’t like the values, demeanor, and interests of the other side. Finding solutions with whom we disagree is not appeasing. It is the result of good negotiation practices. Furthermore, in the context of war, spreading propaganda that fighting is an absolute necessity and no deal is ever possible—turning any discussion of negotiation into appeasement or betrayal—can be reckless and unethical. While often used to rally public support and justify the hardships of war, this narrative precludes popular support for negotiated processes or solutions when they become possible and desirable. As a result, it can prolong conflicts unnecessarily, as it prevents settlements that might otherwise bring an earlier and superior end to the war.

Other readers may feel that our recommendations are nevertheless too subservient and thus may feel frustrated that they do not lead to beating Trump. Political leaders may also strongly prefer to create an image of standing up to Trump in front of their voters to build their own internal strong leader image and that is indeed very likely to increase their popularity, at least temporarily. Despite that, we did not focus our advice on how to increase one’s popularity, but on how to obtain better results for one’s constituents.

For those who believe or insist that Trump is evil and should be stopped, they still have the choice to stand up to him as a conscientious act of resistance, emotionally satisfying, and signal strength to one’s constituents. However, this choice may only work temporarily until the likely negative consequences of these negotiation moves catch up to you. Also, demonizing or characterizing your adversary as evil, who should be stopped at any cost, is ethically debatable and highly destructive of one’s fiduciary responsibility and ability to maximize the value for those we represent.

We believe that political leaders may be able to pursue their objectives and their representative duty to serve their people by being tactful and crafting the ideal messages publicly and in private with Trump. Trump is a politician and a businessman, and he knows that others also need support from their constituents. So, he is amenable to his counterparties’ interests but less so for those who confront or resist him because then they become his adversaries. And if you are his adversary, why should he collaborate with you if he can instead and more easily push you publicly?

Conclusion

Negotiating well with Donald Trump will be a critical skill for political and business leaders in the coming years. If he turns out to be a successful President, his negotiation approach will be emulated by many business negotiators worldwide, and then anyone will be vulnerable to facing a Trump-like negotiator across the table. Unfortunately, most descriptions of Trump’s negotiation approach often fail to grasp critical nuances, leading negotiators to follow unproductive negotiation approaches.

From our perspective, Donald Trump’s negotiation approach is closely based on the hard bargainer negotiation approach, which is often used in the business world by those in positions of clear and sustainable power advantage in bilateral negotiations. While common in business, it has been rarely used in recent international relations negotiations. As such, today's diplomatic world seems unequipped to negotiate well with a hard bargainer occupying a position of high power. Country leaders seem to believe that to negotiate well, they must and can either obtain more power than Trump (which is theoretically correct, but for many impossible to achieve in this particular context) or ignore the power difference altogether and negotiate as equals. These are two basic mistakes that will send any negotiator toward failure against a hard bargainer.

In this paper, we correct misunderstandings regarding Donald Trump’s negotiation approach and provide clear and practical guidance on how to negotiate with him. In sum, it should be based on accepting the power difference and then working with Trump to make the deal valuable for both. Negotiators aiming to succeed in negotiating with him will be better off not getting into public arguments or escalations of power, which they are very likely to lose, having a crisp understanding of and avoiding confusing the roles of power, value, and fairness in negotiations, and preparing diligently to maximize value for themselves and Trump.

We believe that anyone can negotiate better and craft superior deals even with the toughest or best of hard bargainers, if they consistently pursue the right negotiation moves (the three do’s), and avoid high-risk ones (the four don’ts) that we describe in this paper.

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^[1] We adapted the Interests, Rights, and Power (IRP) model from Ury, Brett, and Goldberg (1988) to offer a reinterpretation of the Rights category and improve the model’s accessibility for a broader audience. In our version, we translate Interests into Value, and Rights into Fairness. The shift from Interests to Value is largely linguistic, making the model more intuitive for non-academics. However, the shift from Rights to Fairness introduces a more substantial conceptual distinction. We observe two dimensions within traditional rights-based negotiation. The first involves institutionalized rights—such as laws, policies, or regulations—where invoking a right implies potential enforcement (e.g., legal action), often as a form of pressure. We consider this use of rights a Power-based move and classify it under the Power category of the IRP model. The second dimension of rights, which we preserve in our reframing as Fairness, involves subjective moral claims. In this case, negotiators appeal to what they perceive as just or equitable, independent of enforceable standards. The aim is not to compel through authority but to persuade through shared values or moral reasoning. This understanding of fairness constitutes a distinct pathway to resolution—neither purely interest-driven nor rooted in power—and represents a conceptual refinement of the original model.

^[2] Prof. Nye (2004) coined the term “soft power” in international relations to describe a form of influence or persuasion based on shared or attractive goals, values, policies, economics, and culture.

^[3] Nye (1990) and other international relations scholars recognize three different forms of power: hard, soft, and smart. Hard power forces someone to do something he or she would prefer not do otherwise. Soft power helps you get others to want to do what you want through co-option, not coercion. Smart power is the strategic blend of hard and soft power as in using both carrots and sticks to influence the counterparty’s behavior (Wilson 2008). In our understanding, there is a gap in the international relations literature when it comes to power categorization, because Nye’s three categories of power do not cover what we call in negotiation soft bargaining. The closest concept to it in international relations is the concept of sharp power in Walker (2018). While sharp power refers to the coercive and manipulative influence tactics typically associated with authoritarian regimes—such as propaganda, and disinformation campaigns to distort democratic processes (Walker 2018)—this concept is narrower than the broader category of soft bargaining power. Soft bargaining encompasses a wider set of negotiation tactics, such as deception, selective rule enforcement, salami-slicing strategies, which are often employed even by democratic states. Unlike sharp power, which focuses on informational distortion across regime types, soft bargaining highlights the covert use of power to shape outcomes in negotiations, regardless of context or purpose.