Trump Is A Bad Negotiator Because He Can't Be Trusted

The charts above reflect the results of a recent Quinnipiac University Poll -- done between January 9th and 13th of a national sample of 1,209 voters, with a margin of error of 3.3 points.

During the presidential campaign of 2016, Donald Trump told voters that he could solve America's problems because he was a great negotiator. But he has not been able to complete any negotiations of substance. He claimed that he had negotiated North Korea into giving up its nuclear weapons, but that was not true. North Korea continues to refine nuclear material, make nuclear bombs, and make missiles capable of carrying those bombs.

He claimed to have negotiated a great deal to replace NAFTA. Another lie. The new deal is just the same NAFTA with some minor changes.

And after withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris Accords and the Iran Treaty, he has utterly failed to negotiate a better deal (or any deal at all) for either of those.

The truth is that Trump is a terrible negotiator. Why? Because he cannot be trusted. He lies continuously, and even when he agrees to something, he often changes his mind and breaks his word. The leaders of other countries know this, and so do American voters (see charts above).

Here's how Noah Bierman describes it in the Los Angeles Times:

Sen. Mitch McConnell was jolted with a fresh reminder of President Trump’s capriciousness last month: The majority leader persuaded Republican colleagues to take a politically difficult vote to temporarily fund the government, but not a border wall, only to see Trump withdraw support — initiating the longest shutdown in history.

House Republicans learned the same lesson early in Trump’s presidency when he rallied them to repeal Obamacare, then described their effort as “mean.”

As Trump reaches the halfway mark of his term on Sunday, he has left a trail of negotiating partners from both chambers of Congress, both political parties and countries around the world feeling double-crossed and even lied to.

The result is that the president who campaigned as the world’s best deal-maker, vowing that he alone could fix Washington’s dysfunction, has been stymied as he looks for achievements before facing the voters again. Two years in, the man who built a political reputation as a guy who tells it like it is has lost the essential ingredients to closing deals: credibility and trust.