French President Emmanuel Macron bragged to President Donald Trump that he had stolen negotiating tricks from his book, “The Art of the Deal,” after he refused to tell the European Union to negotiate with the U.S. as Trump had suggested, Axios reports.
"I read the 'Art of the Deal,'" Macron told Trump at this month’s NATO summit in Brussels.
"I know that we need to retaliate first so we have some leverage in the negotiation."
The famous MO of Trump’s book, published in 1987, is to keep everyone guessing and off balance. The U.S. hit the EU, Mexico and Canada with trade penalties in late May, including 25 percent on imported steel and 10 percent on imported aluminum, and the European bloc retaliated with penalties on Harley Davidson motorcycles, Levi’s jeans and bourbon.
But when Trump told Macron he should tell the EU to negotiate, Macron declined and said he wouldn’t do so without “leverage.”
The Axios report suggested Macron, like other world leaders, had figured out how to negotiate with Trump.
"Like many foreign leaders, Macron has learned that the only language the U.S. president understands is the un-nuanced, transactional language of dealmaking and the blunt projection of strength," writes Axios' Jonathan Swan.
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