Nournews: For Donald Trump, negotiations never begin at the moment he sits down at the table. He starts much earlier—by threatening, exaggerating, and instilling fear in the other side. Just as he wrote in The Art of the Deal: “Create an atmosphere that works in your favor first.” Now, on the brink of renewed talks in Oman, the same pattern is repeating—one that Iran has experienced before, not only in rhetoric but also on the ground.
The Art of the Deal: A Playbook for Foreign Policy
If The Art of the Deal is read not as a business book but as a behavioral manifesto for Trump, his foreign policy becomes more predictable. In this book, negotiation is not a rational process based on trust-building; rather, it is a stage on which the opposing party must feel, from the outset, that it is facing an unpredictable, powerful, and reckless actor.
Trump repeatedly stresses that before any agreement, one must possess “leverage”—even if that leverage is more psychological than real. This outlook later migrated from New York skyscrapers to the White House and became the backbone of his decision-making toward China, North Korea, Europe, and above all, Iran.
Threats Before Diplomacy: A Recurrent Pattern
Trump’s behavior ahead of every major negotiation follows an almost fixed formula:
First threats, then humiliation, and only afterward the promise of talks.
Before meeting Kim Jong-un, he spoke of “fire and fury.” Before negotiating with China, he raised tariffs. And before every round of talks on Iran, he invoked “all options on the table” and “maximum pressure.”
The same pattern is visible ahead of the Oman negotiations. Trump and his aides have once again spoken of pressure tools, sanctions, and threats even before a formal agenda has been clarified—suggesting that the goal is less about reaching an agreement and more about psychologically undermining the other side before talks even begin.
The Bitter Experience of an Incomplete Negotiation
Iran, however, has not experienced this pattern only at the level of words. In the previous round of talks—conducted with the involvement of Abbas Araghchi and Steve Witkoff, Trump’s representative—a process was underway that was abruptly halted by U.S. and Israeli military action against Iran. From Tehran’s perspective, the message was clear:
In Trump’s logic, negotiation and military pressure are not opposites; they operate simultaneously and reinforce one another.
This is stated explicitly in The Art of the Deal: if the other side feels secure, it will not concede. That sense of security must therefore be stripped away—even at the cost of undermining the credibility of the negotiation itself.
Trump views negotiation as an instrument for imposing will, not as a mechanism for resolving disputes. In this framework, dialogue is successful only when the other side retreats, not when a shared solution is reached. That is why he has repeatedly labeled agreements he himself signed as “the worst deal ever”—because, in his logic, a good deal is one that projects an image of total victory.
From this perspective, the JCPOA was intolerable to Trump—not necessarily because of its technical provisions, but because his signature was not on it and it did not construct a narrative of him as the “winner.”
Exaggeration as a Tactic
One of the clearest lessons of The Art of the Deal is Trump’s open defense of exaggeration. He writes that sometimes you must make yourself, your power, and even your cards appear bigger than they really are. This is exactly what he is doing ahead of the Oman talks:
Inflated threats, maximalist statements, and media-driven atmospherics that rely less on on-the-ground realities and more on psychological impact.
The problem, however, is that this tactic does not always work against actors with experience and historical memory.
Iran: A Counterparty That Has Read The Art of the Deal
In dealing with Trump, Iran is not facing a conventional negotiator but a political showman. The U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA, sweeping sanctions, and military actions carried out alongside dialogue have made Tehran deeply skeptical of promises—even when they are voiced at the negotiating table.
Under such conditions, Trump’s preemptive threats not only fail to strengthen U.S. bargaining power but may instead lead the other side to conclude that the cost of reaching a deal is higher than the cost of resistance.
Oman: Repetition or Change?
Tomorrow’s talks in Oman are less a test of Iran’s intentions than a test of American behavior. Is Trump willing to depart from his familiar “pressure–spectacle–humiliation” model? Or will he once again turn negotiation into a stage for demonstrating power?
If the logic of The Art of the Deal continues to guide the White House, a fundamental shift seems unlikely. Yet history has shown that politics, unlike business, does not always submit to the rules of performance.
Trump likes negotiations—but not as solutions. He likes them as stages on which an image of victory must be constructed before any agreement is reached. In dealing with Iran, this logic has so far led more to deadlock than to deals.
If the Oman talks are to succeed, they will require something beyond threats and exaggeration—something that The Art of the Deal pays little attention to: trust, continuity, and mutual respect.
And perhaps that is precisely where Trumpian business thinking falters when confronted with real politics.
NOURNEWS