Does Trump Understand That Foreign Policy is More Than Doing Deals?

You can't put a price on sovereignty and security

Trump’s June 15 social media post. (Screenshot: LJ)

On June 15, Donald Trump posted a missive to Truth Social on the growing conflict between Israel and Iran, lamenting that he does a lot and "never get[s] credit for anything." He began, "Iran and Israel should make a deal, and will make a deal, just like I got India and Pakistan to make." He proceeded to list other conflicts between other nations that he claimed to have solved.

One fallacy that Trump, who was a B-list real estate developer and reality television star before becoming president, seems to have about foreign policy is that it is just about doing deals. What is a deal? A deal is an agreement entered into by two (or more) parties for mutual benefit at a given point in time. In commercial real estate, the main concern is whether a deal is financially advantageous to the parties. By contrast, foreign conflicts often concern fundamental notions of sovereignty and security -- which one cannot put a price on.

The divides between nations are also often far less bridgeable than between buyers and sellers. Consider the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran. Iranian leaders have said repeatedly that Israel should be wiped off the map; Israel views the prospect of Iran having a nuclear weapon as an existential threat. Iran views having a nuclear weapon as part of the survival of its theocratic regime; as New York Times columnist David French pointed out, nuclear-armed Russia and North Korea can launch aggressive actions while largely not having to worry about Western-backed regime change, as happened to Saddam Hussein's Iraq in 2003 or Muammar Gaddafi's Libya in 2012.

Yet, there was an agreement between Israel and Iran when Trump took office for the first time in 2017: the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) brokered under the Obama Administration between Iran, China, Russia, European powers, and the U.S.