Trumps racking up wins and rewriting the book on diplomacy

The least diplomatic president in US history is scoring diplomatic victories.Over the last couple of days, Donald Trump has gotten NATO to agree to a defense spending target of 5%, and backed Canada off imposing a digital-services tax on American tech firms.He’s done this while being loathed by many of his foreign interlocutors.In fact, Trump has executed a near-complete inversion of the typical diplomatic formula.He’s not nice.He’s not conflict-averse.

He’s not euphemistic.And yet he’s gotten results.The NATO commitment, in particular, is potentially historic, and could materially strengthen the position of the Western alliance for the long term.Trump is violating the usual rules of persuasion.Abraham Lincoln famously said: “It is an old and true maxim that ‘a drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall.’ ”Trump doesn’t hesitate to pour on the gall, often in ALL CAPS on Truth Social.The leading 19th-century French diplomat Talleyrand said, “A diplomat who says ‘yes’ means ‘maybe,’ a diplomat who says ‘maybe’ means ‘no,’ and a diplomat who says ‘no’ is no diplomat.”Trump says “go to hell” as the start of the negotiation.He persuades by pressuring.He coaxes by threatening.He de-escalates by escalating.He wins friends and influences people by convincing them he thinks they’re freeloaders and losers.A lot of this is a function of his personality and his experience as a Gotham real-estate developer with a nose for power dynamics, a knack for showmanship and a willingness to court risk.

It’s hard to see how his style of international politics will be replicable by a more traditional political figure.But undergirding his approach is a key strategic insight into the gap between US military and economic might and that of its allies, and how this meant there was a vast unexploited potential for the United States to throw its weight around.When the US president is talking about pulling the plug on NATO, or cutti...