Alan Zendell, June 6, 2026

Donald Trump believes he is a master deal maker, something he clearly is not. Trump’s idea of deal making during his long career as a real estate developer was always based on the gangster model. He makes deals like a mafia boss, armed with expensive lawyers and enforcers. For Trump, making a deal means getting what he wants at the expense of everyone he can successfully bully and punishing anyone whom he perceives as disloyal.

Anyone who has studied the true art of deal making understands that Trump’s approach, while it sometimes appears to work in the short run, is the worst possible way to forge lasting agreements. It’s a cliché that a good deal is one in which each side walks away believing it won something of value. Deals that endure over time work because each side achieves something sustainable. But Trump’s deals must vanquish the other side, leaving the people he deals with feeling resentful, angry, cheated, and misled.

That’s not the way to conduct diplomacy or trade negotiations. It is certainly not the way to grow lasting alliances based on mutual trust and shared interests. That’s why Trump will never obtain a deal with Iran that his narcissistic personality can accept. Trump cannot  bully the IRGC that now appears to control the Iranian regime. He said at the outset of his war that one of his principal goals was regime change. He seems to have achieved that goal, silencing all the dissident voices within Iran’s government, leaving the hard-liners who hate America and the West in charge.

We abhor the way the Iranian regime treats their own people and sponsors terrorism, but we still must deal with them. To win a lasting peace without first enduring another forever war in the Middle East, both sides must be able to believe and trust each other, which is why Donald Trump’s approach will fail. He ignores the advice of people who know far more about diplomacy than he does, and refuses to understand how the people he must treat with think and what they value. That requires a level of mutual respect that Trump is incapable of. The only way he knows how to deal with potential adversaries is to alternate between the kind of phony obsequiousness that was on display when he fawned over Xi Jinping, and projecting an air of superiority that enrages friends and foes alike.

Therein lies the problem, which can only be solved if the real professionals who have devoted their lives to averting war can somehow control what comes out of Trump’s mouth. Trump’s approach to power is based on lies, misdirection, and creating chaos. In his war with Iran, that can only lead to disaster. Americans, even much of Trump’s base have learned that they can’t trust anything Trump says. He is a serial liar who often seems incapable of distinguishing truth from his own delusions. He reneges on agreements, and considers himself the only trustworthy arbiter of disagreements, and he trusts his own dangerous impulses over facts and expert counsel.

Trump’s approach to governing is to tear up the established order in favor of a world in which he and his imagined co-emperors have free reign to do whatever they please. He wants to reverse the progressive gains of the last century, he has withdrawn from the worldwide efforts to combat climate change and the World Health Organization, and is on the verge of undermining NATO. He withdrew from the JCPOA, the deal that Barack Obama and nearly twenty other countries spent two years negotiating with Iran to prevent them from developing nuclear weapons.

The International Atomic Energy Agency routinely inspected Iran’s nuclear facilities and reported that they were complying with the agreement. So why did Trump tear it up? Simply because of his personal animus toward Obama. He couldn’t stand the idea that a black president could achieve such an important success. In Trump’s mind, Obama’s success was the ultimate Wokism, which he and Project 2025 are determined to eradicate.

Iran’s leaders are smart. They understand how Trump thinks far better than he understands them. They know they can’t trust him, and he reinforces that every time he seesaws threats with disingenuous olive branches. Three quarters of Americans don’t trust their president. Why should Iran? A high ranking leader of the IRGC told CNN yesterday that Trump is the problem in their negotiations, that it’s impossible to negotiate with someone who doesn’t understand the first thing about diplomacy.

I despise the Iranian regime and what it stands for. But when it comes to deal making and diplomacy, they’re far better at it than Trump. They have his number, and as Trump is fond of saying, they believe they hold the cards that give them leverage. Trump is never going to get a deal as good as the JCPOA. Everyone but Trump knows that regardless of how they spin it.