Does President Trump’s Hard Line Go Away in Person?

An article in The Washington Post this morning, with the headline “Trump’s hard line approach appears to soften in meetings with world leaders,” starts out:

“President Trump entered his meeting with President Xi Jinping over the weekend promising to take a tough approach on trade negotiations and pressure his Chinese counterpart into a sweeping deal.

But the meeting did not produce an agreement – and Trump’s stance seemed to only soften as he announced he was relaxing limits on Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei and delaying new tariffs on Chinese goods in hopes of restarting trade talks with Beijing.”

While the Post makes this sound unusual, it isn’t that unusual in business, which is the world President Trump comes from.¹  In business, it’s easy to take hardline positions in an email or letter.  It’s harder, for most people, to do it in person or on a phone call.  It’s one of the reasons the Executive Vice President at the company where I worked always told people, when we needed to get a deal done, to call the people on the other side or meet with them, instead of just sending emails.  It was easier for other side, and our side, to take hardline positions if they weren’t talking face-to-face, even if face-to-face was just on the phone.

So don’t be surprised when President Trump takes hardline positions on Twitter or in speeches, and then seems to soften in face-to-face meetings.  It’s normal.  I’m not saying it’s good.  In fact, I think it probably isn’t.  For a president, I would rather have consistency.  But don’t be surprised when President Trump doesn’t do that.  For him, it’s just part of the art of the deal.
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¹ This is probably also true in personal relationships, but that is beyond the scope of this post.