“This is harder than real estate in New York, Jared, isn’t it?” Donald Trump joked to his son-in-law Jared Kushner during a lengthy preamble to last week’s White House signing of a “phase one” trade deal with China.
Framed as a humble-brag from one property tycoon to another, Mr Trump’s rhetorical question inadvertently exposed a truth: most negotiation is tough, complex work that resists simple formulas such as those the US president laid out in his 1987 bestseller Trump: The Art of the Deal. There, he summarised his approach this way: “I aim very high, and then I just keep pushing and pushing to get what I’m after.”
This is not the place to analyse the US-China deal in detail, but it is hard to agree with Mr Trump’s description of this preliminary truce in the trade war as “an incredible breakthrough”. That both sides remain at odds over many of the issues that triggered the hostilities does not bode well for a rapid conclusion to phase two.