Adjunct Professor Matt Gold wrote an op-ed in The Hill about President Trump’s negotiation techniques with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto.
The recently released transcript of a January 27 call between President Donald Trump and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto is a real-time witness to the American president executing one of his now recognizable negotiation devices, the “Trump Reverse Bluff.”
In this case, President Trump threatened to impose new customs duties on Mexican goods unless Pena Nieto agreed to stop publicly stating the obvious: That Mexico will not pay for any part of a wall built by the United States on our own side of the border for our own purposes. Instead, Trump insisted, the two leaders should answer the cost question by saying “we will work it out.”
President Pena Nieto “called” the American leader’s bluff by calmly ignoring the threat, retaining the Mexican position that it will not pay for the wall, and suggesting that Trump stop saying otherwise so the press might cease asking the question.