Donald Trump’s journey from New York property mogul to leader of the free world revolved around his deal-making prowess, but in recent weeks the deal-maker-in-chief has been striking a more modest tone.
“I do what I do out of pure enjoyment. Hopefully, nobody does it better,” he wrote on Twitter before joining the presidential race in 2015. “There’s a beauty to making a great deal. It’s my canvas.”
In contrast, when asked in recent weeks about the possibility of a third high-stakes summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, an opportunity to achieve the long-standing diplomatic goal of negotiating a nuclear-free Korean peninsula, he shied from hyperbole.
“There are various, smaller deals that maybe could happen,” he said. “Things could happen. You can work out step by step pieces.” He made clear he still had his eye on the big prize but acknowledged that personal chemistry and a face-to-face session with the North Korean leader might not be the only path to getting things done.
Close observers of the president’s brand of personal diplomacy say they began to sense a change after he walked away from a second planned summit in Vietnam.
On that occasion, his high-stakes gamble failed. After ignoring concerns that he was cozying up to a brutal dictator and insisting that personal engagement was enough to overcome an impasse, the president left the summit when it became clear Kim wanted sanctions lifted in exchange for only incremental progress on denuclearization.
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That result may have led the president to recognize there is more to diplomacy than personal friendship, said Tizoc Chavez, a presidential diplomacy expert at Vanderbilt University.
“At this point Trump can’t really afford another failed summit, which is forcing him to act in a more conventional sense,” he said.
All presidents use a personal connection to advance American interests, he added, but few would want to arrive at a summit needing to provide anything more than a signature on a prearranged deal.
For example, when negotiations with China on a trade deal stalled in early April, President Trump ruled out the possibility of a Mar-a-Lago summit to thrash out an agreement on sticking points such as protections for intellectual property and a rebalancing of trade between the two countries. Instead he offered a more conventional approach.
“If we have a deal, then we’re going to have a summit,” he said. “If we don’t have a deal, we’re not going to have a summit.”
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For Trump supporters, this change in his approach reflected a position of strength. Much of the business and political worlds now back efforts to head off China’s growing dominance.
“Trump knows it has to be the right deal, a great deal and that he has the time to get it exactly where it needs to be,” said a former administration official. “So he’s not going to make a pretend deal because he doesn’t need to and he won’t get away with it.”
For now, Trump is leaning more on his advisers and relying less on summit brinkmanship to get things done. But according to Jeanne Zaino, professor of political science at Iona College, this shift could be temporary. It was often difficult to discern a Trump method early in his administration because he changed direction so frequently, she said.
“Is this a reflection of Trump just changing tack, just doing whatever he can to get the job done, or is it an evolution, giving more space to his staff leading these negotiations?”
“I don’t know what is responsible for the difference but I do think it’s a change,” she said.
Or as one former campaign official put it, “I look for and expect no consistency with Donald Trump. And anyone who looks for that is barking up the wrong tree.”
