A Comparison: Trump’s The Art of the Deal and Sun Tzu’s The Art of War
Trump The Art of The Deal, cover, first edition – Fair Use
Donald J. Trump’s The Art of the Deal (1987) and Sun Tzu’s The Art of War (5th century BCE) outline winning strategies. The Art of War is a Chinese classic read worldwide in military colleges to appreciate the battlefield. The Art of the Deal is gaining importance because its author is now the U.S. President. Trump wrote the book as a realtor, but as the president, he is extending its lessons to reshape the global markets, with the central engagement being with China, the second most powerful world economy after the U.S.
To some readers, these two books share little except “Art” in their titles. Digging deep into these texts reveals fantastic insights about how Trump and Sun Tzu think about conflicts and their solutions. In this article, I draw central commonalities and differences between these texts.
Riskophilia
The Art of the Deal opens with the author saying, “I do it to do it. Deals are my art form.” Just as painters “paint beautifully on canvas” and poets write “wonderful poetry,” Trump says, “I like making deals, preferably big deals. That is how I get my kicks.” Trump’s mindset is searching for massive conflicts to get a big kick out of the deals. Trump imposed trade tariffs on friends and foes alike, almost on the entire world, and then boasted that countries are “kissing my ass” to make deals. Trump is doing exactly what he said in The Deal.
The Art of War opens on a cautionary note, warning that “war is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin.” Therefore, Tzu says a conflict, when it surfaces, is “a subject of inquiry” that requires deliberations “to determine the conditions obtaining in the field.” The decision to go to war is never easy because the probability of ruin “can on no account be neglected.”
The two mindsets are opposite. Trump is riskophile, Tzu is not. Trump generates ventures for potential deals, whereas Tzu is indisposed to go to war. For Tzu, the excitement, drama, commotion, and adrenaline rush of entering a combat zone are undesirable, if not unfortunate, collaterals of conflicts. For Trump, a battlefield without a thrill is tiresome. In 2017, President Trump dropped the GBU-43/B, the mother of all bombs, in Afghanistan, the only time this bomb has been used in combat. This bombing made no strategic difference to the war in Afghanistan. Tzu values restraint and preservation, even in using force, urging rulers to avoid unnecessary combats that drain resources and morale.
Improvisation
Trump believes in instincts as the foundation of making lucrative deals. In explaining the element of the deal, Trump says: “You can take the smartest kid at Wharton, the one who gets straight As and has a 170 IQ, and if he doesn’t have the instincts, he’ll never be successful entrepreneur.” This element may have some validity; what it does is it relies on nature over nurture, instincts over deliberations, and improvisation over careful planning.
Consequently, the visceral art of making a deal leads to chaos and confusion, as we notice with Trump’s tariff policy, where in some cases he is improvising by imposing and pausing tariffs, and in other cases “pushing and pushing to get what I am after.” Hopefully, the economists on Trump’s team will be vigilant about Trump’s actions because an instinct-based trade policy can damage the world economic order built over decades of bilateral and multilateral negotiations. The World Trade Organization has been reasonably practical, if not perfect, in managing international trade. A thrill-seeking dealmaker cannot be allowed to dismantle the world economic order by improvisation.
By contrast, Tzu advocates strategic wisdom in dealing with conflicts. He suggests that a comparative data-based study of conflict dynamics mandates that rulers assess their strengths and weaknesses and those of the enemy. Tzu asks which rulers going to war have superior popular support, which generals on the opposite sides command more ability, and “on which side is discipline most rigorously enforced?” These knowledge-based parameters are the direct opposite of instinct-based improvisation. In response to Trump’s imposition of the most tariffs on China, the Chinese vow to “fight to the end,” indicating preparation in sync with The Art of War.
Winning Without Fighting
Perhaps the most significant difference between Trump and Tzu in resolving disputes hinges on the decision to go to war. Trump says you must fight to win; Tzu suggests winning without fighting. Tzu is not a pacifist; otherwise, he would have written a book on The Art of Peacemaking. His teachings emphasize that the battlefield wastes assets and life, and what else can beat a victory obtained without wasting resources? “To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill,” says Tzu.
Tzu recommends psychological warfare in winning without fighting: “If the enemy is in superior strength, avoid him.” Pretend as if you are incompetent. If the enemy has a combustible temper, seek to irritate him. “Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant.” Vice President Vance berated the Chinese, saying, “We borrow money from Chinese peasants to buy the things those Chinese peasants manufacture.” This putdown would work well if the Chinese had a “choleric temper.” But they don’t, and therefore, the logic of irritation as the art of the deal might not work against the Chinese.
Trump says he hates war, and perhaps he does. However, in The Art of the Deal, Trump invites the fight and presumes that fighting is optimal for making a deal. A deal without a fight does not produce the best outcomes. Trump is more like those lawyers who see trial and litigation as prerequisites for resolving disputes. Show your force before you settle. This approach to winning increases the transaction cost of conflict resolution as parties expend vast amounts of resources on litigation and harassing each other.
Fighting back is one of Trump’s prime strategies. “When people take advantage of me, I fight back very hard,” Trump says. However, fighting back is not a winning strategy if the opponent is superior in strength, cleverer, or more patient to absorb the losses before hitting the knockout. Thus, fighting back even for “something you believe in” is an impulse but not a smart strategy. “All warfare is based on deception” is the most central principle of The Art of War. Accordingly, one could infer that per Tzu, if you are weak, do not fight back, for they will annihilate you. If you are strong, you can still forge a victory without fighting.
Conclusion
It is rare in history that books written centuries apart directly compete in a battlefield, like The Art of the Dealand The Art of War. One author is the current president of the U.S., the largest superpower in the world, and the other author, dead for centuries, does not even know that his book offers insights into commercial warfare as well. Observers contrast the behaviors of Trump and his counterparts in China. The world is not interested in which strategy between instincts and data-based preparation will finally succeed. It wishes to restore and amend the badly wounded world economic order. The people witness the drama while markets breathe heavily, in and out, to register the effects of riskophilia, improvisation, and winning without fighting.
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