Leverage

Trump is scheduled to meet with Xi this Saturday. Sundance writes in the Conservative Treehouse,

...Can you see what President Trump is doing here?

Trump is mirroring the historic approach deployed by China. Beijing is facing a new dynamic where the U.S. President will not accept any retreat from his current position. This zero-sum outlook is exactly the same approach all Chinese negotiators use…. only this time it’s Trump using their strategy against them. It’s President Trump who will not retreat from gained position. This has to be seriously perplexing for Beijing.

Now, to be fair, unlike China President Trump is not constitutionally predisposed to never give ground… he’s a negotiator of reasonable compromise. However, President Trump has modified his approach based on his knowledge of his adversary.

In essence, Donald Trump is mirroring the ideology and negotiating position of the person on the other side of the table….. only now, based on two-years of groundwork in preparation for his position, President Trump is carrying all the strength and leverage.

China is on its heels. Trump has set up a dynamic where a pre-planned group of regional allies can easily compensate for any manufacturing deficit caused by Trump’s adversarial position toward China. The corporate exodus visible within this plan has already begun.

The G20 is being held in Osaka, Japan. Essentially President Trump’s home turf as expressed by his relationship with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the recent high-honor of the first state visit to celebrate new Japanese Emperor Naruhito.

The geography for the G20 is perfect for this moment. The dynamic of regional allies are all aligned with Trump as planned from the November 2017 ‘golden ticket‘ tour of Asia. Additionally, President Trump carries all of the economic leverage he was quietly assembling as Beijing underestimated and misinterpreted the Trump bravado.

At no time in history has a U.S. President ever had all of the consequential dynamics aligned in his favor. This did not happen accidentally.

That’s why U.S. officials are saying they are not coming to the meeting with any concessions, and for the first time in modern history Beijing will have to make the compromise, or suffer a very visible set of consequences.

Read more here.