Trump’s ‘flexible’ negotiating style could make or break North Korea talks

READY TO WALK: President Trump is counting on his well-honed skills as a negotiator to keep him from being played when he meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, including employing the time-honored tactic of walking away if things are not working out. “If the meeting, when I’m there, is not fruitful, I will respectfully leave the meeting,” Trump said at yesterday’s Mar-a-Lago news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. In fact, Trump said, if he doesn’t have a good feeling going in, he won’t even go. “If we don’t think it’s going to be successful … we won’t have it.”

As anyone who has ever negotiated the purchase of a new car knows, sometimes you have to be willing to walk out of the showroom to find out the real bottom line. Or as Trump put it in his ghostwritten 1987 bestseller The Art of the Deal, “The worst thing you can possibly do in a deal is seem desperate to make it. That makes the other guy smell blood, and then you’re dead.” Still, Trump remains optimistic. “I hope to have a very successful meeting.”