Former New Mexico Gov. and United States Ambassador to the United Nations Bill Richardson slammed Trump’s deal-making as president in an opinion piece in the Washington Post Friday.
Richardson said that Trump’s negotiating since being sworn in even violates principles laid out in Trump’s favorite book—The Art of the Deal, written by Trump (and ghostwriter Tony Schwartz).
Negotiators should also keep as many options open as possible. “I never get too attached to one deal or one approach,” negotiator Trump writes in “The Art of the Deal.” “I keep a lot of balls in the air, because most deals fall out, no matter how promising they seem at first.” President Trump, however, seems intent on closing doors before he has an alternative lined up. He wasted no time signing an executive order that marked the United States’ withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Yes, it fulfilled a campaign pledge, but TPP was meant to give us economic leverage over China, and Trump just gave a lot of it away without lining up alternatives, thereby letting China back in the game.
Richardson also criticized Trump’s dealings with Mexico. Trump claimed throughout the campaign, and in recent days, that Mexico would pay for a border wall. The wall is estimated to cost between $8 billion and $14 billion dollars.
Mexico has been resistant, and embattled Mexico president Enrique Peña Nieto canceled a scheduled trip to meet with Trump. The two spoke on the phone Friday and the Mexican president’s office said the two leaders “agreed for now to not speak publicly about this controversial issue.”
Richardson said by backing Peña Nieto into a corner, “the price of reaching a deal just goes up.”