Jorma_P
George Takei 
π³οΈβπππ½Art of the Deal my ass.
πͺπΊ Paul Schoonhoven ππ@georgetakei well ... That sums it up quite well in 2 tweets. π
Professor_StevensActually, that's basic horse-trading. You make the other guy go first. That sets a line he cannot retreat from. Sounds like the Japanese were too smart for it.
J3RN 
@Professor_Stevens @georgetakei Coincidentally why potentially employers always ask you how much you expect your compensation to be in the first interview.
Flo@j3rn @Professor_Stevens @georgetakei However, in this case the potential employer asked βwhat kind of work do you offer?β and when asked βwell, what kind of open positions do you have?β, couldnβt answer the question and had no authority to hire anyone in the first place.
This is like casually talking to a ground floor employee about jobs, not a job interview.
cqd_sos@Professor_Stevens @georgetakei
I don't think Trump officials would have any problem making outlandish demands, to set off negotiations, if they had any clue what they were doing.
I think that comes straight from not having any clue what their boss is doing. Taking a position that relies on consistency, integrity, reliability, or rationality from Donald Trump is foolish at best, self-destructive at worst. No matter what he said a minute ago, he'll say something different next if he thinks it gets him something that he wants.
@Professor_Stevens @georgetakei
Pretty sure that's precisely how it is.
There is no plan, no preparation. To conduct a negotiation they'd have to have him on the phone, to ask him what to do next each step along the way. And leave the invention of a random ad-hoc strategy, "the art", to him, so that, with any luck, they're not getting their butts kicked once they produce the results.
Passenger@cqd_sos @Professor_Stevens @georgetakei
This was apparently the experience of the European negotiators when dealing with the UK during Brexit trade discussions. The British couldn't articulate what they wanted, simply asking the Europeans to make them offers so they could reject them.
@passenger @Professor_Stevens @georgetakei
Yeah, but there's an excuse. The UK government didn't want a Brexit, it was imposed on them by a referendum held because Cameron didn't know how to deal with the Eurosceptics. That's why there was no planning in place.
You can understand that. The confusion. No one really expected that outcome.
@cqd_sos @Professor_Stevens @georgetakei
This was years after the referendum, in 2018 or so, after the 2017 election when the UK had replaced its government with Brexiteers. The EU had used the time to come up with a consistent position, and Britain just hadn't. All they could do was waffle and grandstand.
If I had to take a guess as to why: it's because the UK government was trapped by the need to appease its Right-wing media which was not in touch with reality. In such a situation, there was no coherent position they could take except to just hope that if they were nationalistic enough and waffled enough, something would work out.
@passenger @Professor_Stevens @georgetakei
Yes, yes and yes. Don't recall each detail, but when you say "replaced its government with Brexiteers", there's the answer.
They weren't serious politicians with a concept. Farage and associates were provocateurs, agents of chaos, who smelled a weakness in Cameron and exploited it.
Watching the ongoings on BBC World back then, it was clear to me that it was a complete mess. But not one deliberately created by a blatantly incompetent administration.
Rita Singer@cqd_sos @passenger @Professor_Stevens @georgetakei not quite true either. Theresa May campaigned against Brexit. She'd been in Parliament for a long time and to date the longest running Home Office minister. She was not a rookie sending rookies, but Brexit dogmatists with a hankering for a lost bullish empire. Part of the problem was British lack of empathy for a room full of non-British negotiators.
@_bydbach_ @cqd_sos @Professor_Stevens @georgetakei
Remember that by mid 2017, May had appointed a coterie of longterm Brexiteers to the positions responsible for carrying out Brexit: Johnson was foreign minister, Davis was Brexit secretary, etc. There was commentary at the time that this was a good idea because they would have to "clean up their own mess." Unfortunately they were staggeringly unprepared for what happened.
@passenger @_bydbach_ @Professor_Stevens @georgetakei
Johnson is the type I had in mind. Not a serious strategist, rather a showman, feeding people half-truths and raising false hopes, how easy the Brexit process and how wonderful life would be afterwards. More of an illusionist than a responsible politician.
On the other hand, I found it remarkable how smoothly the process went, after the expected, initial heated argument. No vicious threats. No childish grandstanding. All very civilized.
@passenger @_bydbach_ @Professor_Stevens @georgetakei
I mean that, really. What the EU and the UK demonstrated to the world is how two parties, finding themselves in a situation not everyone wanted to be in, still can treat each other as friends, and productively work on a solution both can live with. Respect.
geolaw@passenger @cqd_sos @Professor_Stevens @georgetakei And the end result was that the European negotiators got a good deal for Europe. And after that, a bunch of corporations shifted their headquarters and factories to Europe.
@geolaw @passenger @Professor_Stevens @georgetakei
Whether it was a good idea or not to exit the EU is a different discussion. Time will tell. I'm just saying that how it came about isn't at all comparable to what's happening in the US.
That said, I believe the EU was comparatively forthcoming. The border between the Irelands was a major problem, I seem to recall, where they could have played hardball.
Plus, Scotland is still part of the UK. Which should also be considered great news.
DqTube@georgetakei Artistic representation of the process of the meeting https://youtu.be/VZrp7mAmeRI&t=32
IT Crowd Bytes - Jen's encounter with the Japanese
WooShell@georgetakei That was to be expected. They can't say what they actually want ("We want your president to kiss our president's ass" doesn't go well in the newspapers..), and they have no actual mathematical basis on which to calculate a trade deal on, other than the AI hallucinations they apparently used..
You can't repeat that often enough. It isn't really about trade or economics. It's about Trump abusing US power, trying to make people come to him and stroke his rotten ego.
tekhedd@georgetakei Well, if I wanted the negotiations to stagnate, and was planning to blame the other side, this is what I'd do. But then I'm nefarious and not a very nice person. Good thing that isn't the case.
CharyouTree@georgetakei That's because they didn't explicitly "want" anything. What they really wanted was to show up looking all intimidating and have the Japanese delegation panic and offer something as a bribe.
Which they didn't, because they're career diplomats instead of mafia-CEOs.
Citoyen europΓ©en Ray Hindle βοΈ@georgetakei βThe Art of the Ass,β no deal!
Rev. Charles Browning@georgetakei Iβm so often reminded of that scene in The Dark Knight where the Joker says that heβs like a dog chasing a car, not knowing what heβll do if he catches it. This is this administration. Dogs chasing cars.
Joddo@georgetakei ππ€¦ββοΈ
Three plus or minus fiveMy private bet is that they wanted bribes.
1337
Brent Guernsey, Artrocity Studio"Big Japanese men. Strong Japanese men with tears in their eyes. They said, "Sir..."
JΓ©rΓ΄me@georgetakei That's exactly what happened with Canada.
Asked clearly what we could do, no answer, no fucking clue, it was just for show.
famousringo@georgetakei seems like a missed opportunity to offer them some shiny beads or a pre-release Switch 2 or something.
ΧΧΧ Χ‘ΧΧΧΧ¨ ΧΧΧ§ΧΧ¨Χ - Orr Dunkelm
Cosmic Librarian@georgetakei
More like "Art of the Grift'
More like "Art of the Grift'
Dickenhobelix@georgetakei Well, in that case "ass of the deal" it is, I guess...
MvRiederberg@georgetakei You missed it only by a cent. Ass is correct. Trump wanted only, that they kiss his ass. And say so in public. That's the deal.
LairdJames@georgetakei the Japanese delegation seemingly hadn't been informed about the requirement to directly enrich Trump via his crypto offerings prior to any negotiations.
donald_brady@georgetakei Iβd like to express my surprise but I have none.
Tywyll Seren@georgetakei
Remember, tRump had a ghost writer do that book.
Remember, tRump had a ghost writer do that book.
Inc Hulk π§ͺ@georgetakei I see Japan just gave Ukraine $ 3bn taken from Russian assets. tRump failure to negotiate has good results! https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/japan-signs-deal-on-3-billion-for-ukraine-under-g7-loan/ar-AA1DbDJ1
Howard Wilson IIBut that IS his art of the deal! Do fuck-all and take credit for anything good that happens in spite of him, deny responsibility for the bad that happens because of him.
Toby!@georgetakei
'Business man' the fascist can't even do toddler level negotiations FFS
'Business man' the fascist can't even do toddler level negotiations FFS
Jad Salameh@georgetakei They are really trying to apply the "sell me this pen" technique to international relations, but instead of an object, they use an abstraction 
@georgetakei They are right to put the question back to the US. This is not a trade war. This is a rogue president breaking lawful trade agreements. I hope that the world has the good sense and will to refuse to negotiate with this extortionist. Complying will only enable worse behaviour. We all must respond to this.
Enoch@georgetakei π fucking idiots
Hugh Ferguson@georgetakei hey Japan, trade with Canada instead. We're not as big but we won't waste your time like Trumps team
Agitatra π²π»πΏπͺπΊπΊπ¦@georgetakei I don't unterstand what's the problem with "art" here. "Art" is "art", nothing more. It doesn't have to be rational, beautiful, helpful, smart or whatever.
RevPudDudley@georgetakei
Well, the 1st demand was reparations for Pearl Harbor, payable into Drumpf's personal accounts, but that wasn't taken seriously
Well, the 1st demand was reparations for Pearl Harbor, payable into Drumpf's personal accounts, but that wasn't taken seriously
Daniel Waites 
@georgetakei @pluralistic what the admin wants is so corrupt they cannot state it explicitly.
Faraiwe@georgetakei *Shart of the Deal
Words are Wind πΊπ¦ π³οΈβπ@georgetakei
What they want is submission to their domination.
Very simple.
Don't give me anything. Just bow and kneel.