The Zen Art of the Deal

Sorry everybody, I didn't realize Steve was leaving so soon and I was busy with something.

Image via Food & Wine.

Peter Baker in the New York Times:

His 17 months in office have in fact been an exercise in futility for the art-of-the-deal president. No deal on immigration. No deal on health care. No deal on gun control. No deal on spending cuts. No deal on Nafta. No deal on China trade. No deal on steel and aluminum imports. No deal on Middle East peace. No deal on the Qatar blockade. No deal on Syria. No deal on Russia. No deal on Iran. No deal on climate change. No deal on Pacific trade.

Even routine deals sometimes elude Mr. Trump, or he chooses to blow them up. After a Group of 7 summit meeting this month with the world’s leading economic powers, Mr. Trump, expressing pique at Canada’s prime minister, refused to sign the carefully negotiated communiqué that his own team had agreed to. It was the sort of boilerplate agreement that every previous president had made over four decades.

It's really remarkable when you think about it. He's literally in negative territory (having left the Paris climate accord, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and the Iran nuclear agreement, with the US-Korea Free Trade Agreement and NAFTA likely to topple next). We'd have gotten more of those precious deals, mathematically speaking, if we'd elected a can of Spam instead.

Cross-posted at The Rectification of Names.