I agree 100% with David Dodwell writing in today's South China Morning Post.
I too was involved in international trade negotiations with US officials, in my case representing Australian interests, and mainly in agricultural trade. We became frustrated at times because the US was able to obtain what we thought were over-favourable terms for its own farmers because of its immensely larger economy and clout.
For Trump to claim victimhood is pathetic nonsense.
Scott Adams would say the truth doesn't matter; it's all about persuasion and creating the tone: presumably for even greater bias to America. To MAGA.
But it could well backfire. I hope it does because speaking nonsense helps
noone not even American farmers.
From Dodwell, for me the money shot:
/Snip
My insight into this story, over decades of being inside some negotiations, and watching many more from close by? US trade negotiators were persistently the most dogged and ferocious in defining US interests, ensuring these were at the heart of any set of negotiations, and in fighting through concessions that helped US companies win access to export and investment opportunities in other
These negotiators were almost all legal experts. They were almost always the best informed in the room. Their negotiating teams were always the largest and best resourced. They had set the forum, set the agenda, forged support for every possible agenda item, and flown home with concessions that were celebrated by US businesses.
To suggest that these negotiators betrayed their country by signing dumb deals that gifted away the US economy is not only egregiously inaccurate, but is grossly insulting to decades of work by conscientious and fiercely patriotic US diplomats.
Sent from my iPhone
