Former Trump Organization Executive Says Ego Undermines Trump's Deal-Making
Barbara Res, who spent 18 years at the Trump Organization, says Donald Trump could be a stronger negotiator if his need to win did not block concessions, as he campaigns on his deal-making record ahead of the midterms.
A former executive vice president at the Trump Organization says Donald Trump's insistence on winning every negotiation limits his effectiveness as a dealmaker, a critique that lands as the president campaigns across the country on the strength of his deal-making record ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections.
Barbara Res, who oversaw construction at the Trump Organization for 18 years and later wrote a book about her time there, said Trump's ego prevents him from making the concessions that negotiations require. «He could be a better negotiator if his ego didn't get in the way,» Res said. «Any concession that should be made, he can't make. Then, with the other parts of it, nothing can continue. He just has to win everything.»
The assessment comes as Trump travels from Florida to Alaska to rally Republican voters, presenting himself as an unqualified success whose business career prepared him to deliver results in Washington. That pitch has become central to a midterm election that is widely being read as a referendum on his presidency and his record as a dealmaker.
Trump's image as the consummate negotiator who never loses was cultivated over decades, first in the New York tabloids and later on reality television. As early as 1984, three years before «The Art of the Deal» was published, a 38-year-old Trump told The Washington Post that he could negotiate Russian arms control better than Ronald Reagan. «It would take an hour-and-a-half to learn everything there is to learn about missiles,» he said at the time. «You either have it, or you don't.»
That persona faded at points before «The Apprentice» debuted in 2004, when Trump was allowed to play a wealthy and powerful tycoon on television and rebooted the dealmaker image. Joel Penney, a professor at Montclair State University who studies the intersection of pop culture and politics, said that image of wealth and success helped launch Trump's first presidential run «because people feel like, 'Well, if he's the president some of that success and wealth is gonna rub off on me.'»
An examination of Trump's deal-making in both the private sector and the White House shows mixed results. As president, he promised to negotiate an end to Russia's war in Ukraine in a day, and he announced an agreement that he said meant Moscow and Kyiv would not attack each other's energy infrastructure. That pause never happened. He also brokered what he called a «great» ceasefire involving Iran, though it quickly fizzled, and he repeatedly said Tehran was desperate to make a deal, which proved untrue.
On trade, Trump promised to use the threat of tariffs to negotiate the best deals ever, only to impose unilateral duties on nearly the whole world. Those import taxes have raised domestic prices and sparked trade wars with close allies including Canada. The levies brought in more than $83 billion this year through September, much of it paid by American consumers and still far less federal revenue than Trump suggested.
Even smaller commitments have foundered. Trump said he had «a guy who's unbelievable at doing swimming pools» who could fix the Lincoln Memorial's Reflecting Pool for a little more than $1 million. The cost has been closer to $20 million so far.
Marty Latz, a negotiation expert and author of a book on how Trump negotiates, said the businessman saw every negotiation as a zero-sum game. «The reality is, he did negotiate some excellent deals, but also that he did fail spectacularly in a number of deals, and that he has never really successfully negotiated as president in a significant number of contexts,» Latz said.
Christopher Preble, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center, a national security think tank, said Trump is «not as good at this as he thinks he is.» Preble noted that real estate deals can be spun in ways that are harder to sustain on the world stage. «There's a certain bit of tap dancing around those details that he just can't do given what's happening in the world today,» he said.
Some of Trump's deals have succeeded or still might. Top administration officials, including former White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, have described him as «the dealmaker in chief.» In May, Trump defended having the U.S. take a stake in the Union Pacific-Norfolk Southern rail merger, saying, «I make one of those deals every day that no normal person would make.»
Tim O'Brien, author of «TrumpNation: The Art of Being The Donald,» said the president may finally learn after Election Day «how much voters believe that he's a competent manager and a great dealmaker.»
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