Washington, DC- Ahead of the meeting between Mexico, Canada and the USA in Mexico City to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Act, Trump has begun what he terms the ‘negging’ portion of the trade negotiations.
The President is said to have discovered the term, which describes bringing down someone’s self esteem by making snide comments to make them more vulnerable to manipulation, in a book called The Game by “pick up artist” Neil Strauss. Trump has been applying this technique in his communication with his children, business partners and now sovereign countries.
“This is pretty classic dad” said Donald Trump Jr “everytime I call him he answers the phone by saying how happy he is to speak to his 4th favourite child. But I know he’s just building a strong negotiating position for when I ask him for a business advice, or a hug.”
Other examples of Trump’s presidential negging includes pretending to not remember Mitch McConnell’s name and telling French president Macron that he’s “so smart, like Kellyanne Conway smart”
Other North American leaders have been struggling to find the appropriate response to Trump’s negging. Mexican president Pena Nieto chose not to respond to a twitter DM that asked if negotiations would be in Spanish or a “real” language.
Although Trudeau has yet to comment on the persistent negging, a source inside the Prime Minister’s office has reported that Trudeau just mutters “largest trading partner, largest trading partner” every time Trump interrupts him with “That’s really interesting, by the way how many golf courses do you own?”
“Although it is common for governments to try to project strength ahead of negotiations, it is unusual for them to do it in such a petty and childish way.” said International Trade professor Hamed Kanh “We’ve never seen anything approaching this from an American president since LBJ and Pearson.”
Donald Trump isn’t the only world leader to use The Game to for policy decisions. Foreign policy experts are anxiously studying how the international community will respond to Trudeau’s repeated shirtless peacocking.
