PORTLAND - How can a rational person seriously negotiate with an American president:

A man who today abrogates an agreement that he signed in 2020 (the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement or USMCA) after he did not like the 1994 agreement (the North American Free Trade Agreement or NAFTA) signed by an earlier president?  

A man who changes his mind on tariffs on an hourly basis—on the products and on the countries he is targeting—seemingly ignorant of the impact of uncertainty on both goods and financial markets and the fact that changing tariffs cause profound changes in production and supply chains around the world?

A man who pardons those he calls “patriots” who stormed the U.S. Capitol, including some guilty of other crimes, but says that violent demonstrations against Tesla are domestic terrorism? 

A man who orders the assassination of a top general (Soleimani) of an adversary in a foreign country (Iraq)? 

A man who abrogates an agreement (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action also known as the Iran nuclear deal) that a previous American president signed along with Russia, China, Great Britain, France, Germany and the European Union and that was ratified by the UN Security Council, then imposes more economic sanctions and now threatens you if you don’t come to the table and sign a new accord?

A man who threatens an adversary of Israel (Hamas) with hell if it does not obey his demands?

A man who threatens to take over what America does not own—Greenland, Panama, Canada, Gaza—by force if needed in some cases? 

A man who claims that Ukraine started the war with Russia after Russia bombed and invaded Ukraine and had earlier annexed parts of Western Ukraine and its Crimea Peninsular? 

A man who cuts off intelligence to an ally of the United States, Ukraine, in the middle of a war?

A man who, in return for large campaign contributions, has ceded much of America’s domestic and foreign policy initiatives to two financial donors (Musk and Adelson)?

A man who is in the process of evicting a legal American resident (the holder of a Green Card) who is married to an American citizen simply because he organized demonstrations at a major university and spoke out against Israel’s ongoing war and destruction of Gaza?  

So, an agreement with such a President is not worth the paper it would be written on. 

The best hope for countries singled out for “negotiation,” aka “readied for bullying and extortion” by President Trump, is uniting with similarly targeted countries and refusing to negotiate unless Trump stops his threats and agrees to have eventual agreements ratified by the U.S. Senate.

In a New York Times column on March 13, David Brooks summed up Trump’s rampage of threats and extortion and their impact: 

“Trumpian incompetence will provoke a counterreaction, which will prove to be an opportunity and rebirth. When that happens people will be ready to hear the truth that Trump will never understand—that when you turn America into a vast extortion machine, you will get some short-term wins as weaker powers bend to your gangsterism, but you will burn the relationships, at home and abroad, that are actually the source of America’s long-term might.”

Ayatollah Khamenei has learned his lesson well. Bravo. There is no point in negotiating and signing an agreement with a man such as President Trump!

Hossein Askari is an emeritus professor of business and international affairs, George Washington University