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View all search resultsHow would Prabowo deal with Trump's ‘art of the deal’?
By now Prabowo should have learned a lesson on how to deal with Trump, and he should use these lessons when he has the opportunity until Aug. 1 to negotiate again with Trump to get a better deal.
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President Prabowo Subianto looks on during the first plenary session of the BRICS summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on July 6. (AFP/Mauro Pimentel)
I
t is not clear how President Prabowo Subianto negotiated with United States President Donald Trump on tariffs for Indonesia’s imports to the US and how the deal was made. What is clear is that Trump softened his stance and offered a generous tariff reduction from 32 percent to 19 percent for Indonesia.
The government can breathe a sigh of relief as it escaped from otherwise devastating tariffs for the economy.
Prabowo said that in negotiation Trump was “tough”. This is probably because Trump always loves making deals, and as he said “making deals is what makes me going“.
By now Prabowo should have learnt a lesson on how to deal with Trump, and he should use these lessons when he has the opportunity until Aug. 1 to negotiate again with Trump to get a better deal.
But he has to be careful and alert for what Trump has in his mind in negotiating the deal. "I always aim very high, and then I just keep pushing and pushing and pushing to get what I'm after," he wrote in his book The Art of The Deal, which was published in 1987 when Trump was already a property billionaire at 43 in New York. "Sometimes I settle for less than I sought, but in most cases, I still end up with what I want”, he wrote.
That is why negotiating with Trump is tricky, as many of his counterparts experienced.
Negotiation with Trump is never on the level playing field, and his propositions were always accompanied with threat and intimidation, offering a “leave it or take it “stance. And Trump was able to do this since he negotiates with huge leverage, by virtue of the American economic might behind him.
