Distributive bargaining is a competitive negotiation approach where one party aims to maximize its share from a limited pool of resources. This strategy is often called zero-sum negotiation, as the total amount of resources available remains constant. Some call this the win-lose method, as compromise is not the goal. David Honig, an attorney and adjunct professor at Indiana University, has spoken out about distributive bargaining and his belief that this is Donald Trump’s preferred negotiation style.

While I do not believe Trump is ill-prepared for the job at hand, I do believe his past experience in business has played a role in the viewpoint that America loses if there is a compromise. Integrative bargaining is a negotiation strategy that focuses on creating win-win situations where all parties feel that they are gaining something of value.

When world leaders negotiate trade agreements, international treaties, or economic policies, integrative bargaining is crucial because it encourages cooperation rather than competition. Healthy competition is what we want to see. Everyone wants a leader who fights for domestic interests first. But it is important to realize that international interests often spill over to the domestic side when we are speaking of economic matters. We cannot view the economy through purely domestic lenses.

Economies are highly interconnected through global supply chains, international trade, and cross-border investments. Disrupting these connections can and will cause significant economic instability. One cannot use distributive bargaining in economic matters since everything is connected. Tariffs on Mexico and Canada will result in an initial loss for those nations that will spread to America and elsewhere.

Below is Professor Honig’s interpretation that has been circulating online:

“I’m going to get a little wonky and write about Donald Trump and negotiations. For those who don’t know, I’m an adjunct professor at Indiana University – Robert H. McKinney School of Law and I teach negotiations. Okay, here goes.

Trump, as most of us know, is the credited author of “The Art of the Deal,” a book that was actually ghost written by a man named Tony Schwartz, who was given access to Trump and wrote based upon his observations. If you’ve read The Art of the Deal, or if you’ve followed Trump lately, you’ll know, even if you didn’t know the label, that he sees all dealmaking as what we call “distributive bargaining.”

Distributive bargaining always has a winner and a loser. It happens when there is a fixed quantity of something and two sides are fighting over how it gets distributed. Think of it as a pie and you’re fighting over who gets how many pieces. In Trump’s world, the bargaining was for a building, or for construction work, or subcontractors. He perceives a successful bargain as one in which there is a winner and a loser, so if he pays less than the seller wants, he wins. The more he saves the more he wins.

The other type of bargaining is called integrative bargaining. In integrative bargaining the two sides don’t have a complete conflict of interest, and it is possible to reach mutually beneficial agreements. Think of it, not a single pie to be divided by two hungry people, but as a baker and a caterer negotiating over how many pies will be baked at what prices, and the nature of their ongoing relationship after this one gig is over.

The problem with Trump is that he sees only distributive bargaining in an international world that requires integrative bargaining. He can raise tariffs, but so can other countries. He can’t demand they not respond. There is no defined end to the negotiation and there is no simple winner and loser. There are always more pies to be baked. Further, negotiations aren’t binary. China’s choices aren’t (a) buy soybeans from US farmers, or (b) don’t buy soybeans. They can also (c) buy soybeans from Russia, or Argentina, or Brazil, or Canada, etc. That completely strips the distributive bargainer of his power to win or lose, to control the negotiation.

One of the risks of distributive bargaining is bad will. In a one-time distributive bargain, e.g. negotiating with the cabinet maker in your casino about whether you’re going to pay his whole bill or demand a discount, you don’t have to worry about your ongoing credibility or the next deal. If you do that to the cabinet maker, you can bet he won’t agree to do the cabinets in your next casino, and you’re going to have to find another cabinet maker.

There isn’t another Canada.

So when you approach international negotiation, in a world as complex as ours, with integrated economies and multiple buyers and sellers, you simply must approach them through integrative bargaining. If you attempt distributive bargaining, success is impossible. And we see that already.

Trump has raised tariffs on China. China responded, in addition to raising tariffs on US goods, by dropping all its soybean orders from the US and buying them from Russia. The effect is not only to cause tremendous harm to US farmers, but also to increase Russian revenue, making Russia less susceptible to sanctions and boycotts, increasing its economic and political power in the world, and reducing ours. Trump saw steel and aluminum and thought it would be an easy win, BECAUSE HE SAW ONLY STEEL AND ALUMINUM – HE SEES EVERY NEGOTIATION AS DISTRIBUTIVE. China saw it as integrative, and integrated Russia and its soybean purchase orders into a far more complex negotiation ecosystem.

Trump has the same weakness politically. For every winner there must be a loser. And that’s just not how politics works, not over the long run.

For people who study negotiations, this is incredibly basic stuff, negotiations 101, definitions you learn before you even start talking about styles and tactics. And here’s another huge problem for us.

Trump is utterly convinced that his experience in a closely held real estate company has prepared him to run a nation, and therefore he rejects the advice of people who spent entire careers studying the nuances of international negotiations and diplomacy. But the leaders on the other side of the table have not eschewed expertise, they have embraced it. And that means they look at Trump and, given his very limited tool chest and his blindly distributive understanding of negotiation, they know exactly what he is going to do and exactly how to respond to it.

From a professional negotiation point of view, Trump isn’t even bringing checkers to a chess match. He’s bringing a quarter that he insists of flipping for heads or tails, while everybody else is studying the chess board to decide whether its better to open with Najdorf or Grünfeld.”

— David Honig

Three years into the war and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has finally stated he is willing to TALK to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Both Putin and Zelensky would like Trump to assist in negotiating a peace deal. Zelensky firmly said “at the negotiation table there must be the United States, Europe, Ukraine and Russia.” But that did not go well for Russia last time.

The last time European leaders sat down to mitigate Russia-Ukraine relations, they presented Moscow with the false Minsk Agreement. As German Chancellor Angela Merkel later revealed, the agreement was a complete hoax intended to buy time for Ukraine to build up its military. Putin may distrust Europe but has held out hope that Donald Trump could present a solution.

“Putin is ready. We are waiting for signals (from Washington). Everyone is ready. It is difficult to read the coffee grounds here. As soon as there is something, if there is something, we will inform you,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said weeks after Trump was elected. Putin has been asking to speak with Zelensky for many years, long before the war began. He may have held out some hope for discussions with Trump, but the Russian leader believes Zelensky’s recent statements are “empty words.” In fact, Putin no longer wants to speak with Zelensky as he does not consider him the official ruler of Ukraine. Zelensky declared himself the ruler of Ukraine without hosting a proper election, citing the war as the reason he must retain power.

Zelensky also signed a decree in 2022 that said he would not speak with Putin directly. It does not give much confidence when a leader refuses to sit down and speak with a foe. Zelensky is afraid to speak with Putin directly. Putin has been deeply engaged in politics for a lifetime while Zelensky is trained comedian and actor. He is not qualified to hold a discussion on his own.

“We will be speaking with Putin. Don’t we make too many compromises? Even the conversation with Putin is already a compromise,” Zelensky said. “Nobody knows how this conversation will start and how it will end. Nobody knows, but we believe that President Trump wants to succeed in this situation.”

Neither party has said that they would end the war without massive compromises. Ukraine is now seeking nuclear arms from the West as an alternative to NATO membership. Putin has been quite clear about what he wants. It is more likely than not that Zelensky became wrapped up in the moment of a live interview but likely does not have true intentions to negotiate peace.

President Trump announced that the US will be taking over the Gaza strip after a press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Trump envisions transforming Gaza into an international economic hub for the Middle East. “He sees a different future for that piece of land,” Netanyahu said. “I envision the world people living there, the world’s people. You’ll make that into an international unbelievable place. I think the potential in the Gaza strip is unbelievable,” and it could be “the riviera of the Middle East,” Trump said.

As for the nearly 2 million inhabitants, well, they have been asked to leave. Gaza is not a place for people to be living. The only reason they want to go back, and I believe this strongly, is they have no alternative. What’s the alternative? Go where? If they had an alternative, they’d much rather not go back to Gaza and live in a beautiful alternative that’s safe,” he said. Arab nations have already stated that they will not accept Palestinians, but Trump said he plans to open negotiations with the likes of Egypt, Jordan, and other nearby nations.

Discussions of redeveloping Gaza began long before the war. Trump is a notorious real estate mogul. He discussed plans for redeveloping portions of Palestine in his 2020 peace plan, backed by his Jewish son-in-law and real estate developer Jared Kushner.

Real estate developers have been eyeing Gaza and have proposed numerous construction projects for Gaza. Harey Zahav, an Israeli real estate firm, created blueprints for luxury settlements along the West Bank. The company envisions beachfront homes build upon demolished land. Some say that the company was trolling but there indeed are now plans to turn this strip of land into the next Dubai. “You build really good quality housing, like a beautiful town, like some place where they can live and not die, because Gaza is a guarantee that they’re going to end up dying,” Trump told reporters.

“We consider it a recipe for creating chaos and tension in the region,” Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told the press. “Our people in the Gaza Strip will not allow these plans to pass, and what is required is to end the occupation and aggression against our people, not expel them from their land.” A senior Palestinian official wrote to Senator of State Marco Rubio, pleasing that his people do not want to leave their land. Rather, the people want to “live in their land and help rebuild it.”

As the Panama Canal has recently come under fire, let us not forget the Ben Gurion Canal Project. The US and Israel have been discussing plans to build a canal to rival the Suez Canal for over 50 years. The West can no longer count on the Suez Canal controlled by Egypt as tensions continue to rise with Egypt supporting Russia in its war. Yet, 20% of ALL world trade moved through the canal. The Ben Gurion Canal Project, as indicated by the declassified documents, would create an Israeli Canal to rival the Suez.

The document notes that 130 of the 160 miles dedicated to the canal are “virtually unpopulated desert wasteland,” but the primary issue would be relocating those from the Gaza Strip. “Another problem which has not been considered is that of political feasibility, as it is likely that the Arab countries surrounding Israel would object strongly to the construction of such a canal,” the declassified papers show. So, US intelligence has been looking to claim Gaza for some time now. It certainly did not begin with Trump.

Gaza must be annexed before it can be redeveloped. Trump foresees the US in a “long-term ownership position.” Hours earlier, Trump warned that Iran will be obliterated if it attempts to assassinate him. Saudi Arabia came out and said it will not establish relations with Israel without the presence of a Palestinian state. There is bipartisan distaste in the US for sending American troops back to the Middle East. No nation in the Middle East, aside from Israel, wants to see American presence in the region and there is no way that the US can simply walk in and take over a foreign land without bloodshed.

I warned that what would be coming out about USAID would get much worse. As one reader mentions,

COMMENT:  Elon is doing a bang-up job of exposing the state’s ultra-corruption.

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1887263131124310375

I don’t know how Klaus Schwab will compete against you now that his welfare gravy train has been derailed.

The Clintons were shoveling $84M into their pockets.
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1887257971580633095

Musk also released a podcast on his current findings with DOGE; it’s a fascinating listen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DX4EU8ZJBsM

USAID & CIA Were Behind Trump’s Impeachments

OCCRP Meet the Florida Duo Helping Giuliani Investigate for Trump in Ukraine

REPLY: To get Trump impeached, they relied on an Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) report that alleged that two Soviet-born Florida businessmen were “key hidden actors behind a plan” by Trump to investigate Biden and his actions via Ukraine. They connected Giuliani to two former Ukrainian prosecutors, and this was like the Steel Dossier. The OCCRP version was instrumental in getting the House Democrats’ impeachment claim off the ground. The report claimed that Trump dispatched Giuliani to pressure a foreign country to interfere in the 2020 presidential election. This pretend whistleblower cited this fake report four times to justify the impeachment of Trump.

There was even a 2024 German NDR documentary that investigated OCCRP’s dependence on the US government. Indeed, there was a USAID official who confirmed that USAID approves OCCRP’s “annual work plan” and approves new hires of “key personnel.” NDR, with French investigative news organization Mediapart, Italian new group Il Fatto Quotidiano, Reporters United in Greece, and Drop Site News in the United States, all got together to investigate.

OCCRP’s original funding allegedly came from the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs of the State Department. It appears that USAID/OCCRP may be interfering in foreign political situations. It has been alleged that there are connections to interfering in elections as well as organized attempts at regime change. NDR reported that this organization had “probably been responsible for five or six countries changing over from one government to another government.”

I warned you that this is going to get much worse. I wrote a book, The Plot to Seize Russia, where I was asked to invest $10 billion to fund Hermitage Capital to implement a regime change in Russia. I refused. I was then held in civil contempt for seven years without charges until the Supreme Court ordered them to explain why I was being held. Then they released me.

I have had a front-row seat and seen far more than I ever desired.

QUESTION: Why did the Democrats fail to right the 2024 election?

Jed

ANSWER: They did not have Pelosi. The person overseeing the vote is the Speaker of the House, who, this time, was a Republican. The rigging did come at the state level, but that was not the real coup. The real corruption came on January 6th when those behind the curtain instigated the January 6th “Insurrection” that allowed Pelosi to impose (1) emergency rules and (2) her COVID rules to limit the number of people on the floor to 53 when any challenge is to be debated before the entire Congress. Some states were to be challenged, and even if one were reversed, as they just did in Romania, then Biden would have lost.

Biden’s popular vote total 81,283,501 was even larger in 2020 than Obama’s. Nobody believes he inspired more people to vote than Obama. Biden’s vote in 2020 was even larger than Trump’s in 2024 of 77,303,573. Nobody I know of believes Biden had such a vote in 2020.

Therefore, I warned ahead of the election on various interviews that our computer was showing this would be “too big to rig.” Indeed, Trump won the popular vote, but also all seven swing states. First, there was no state that the Democrats could have challenged. But more importantly, the current Republican Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, prevented them from playing games with rules as Pelosi did to make sure Biden won.

As Joseph Stalin pointed out, people can vote for whoever or whatever they want. The person who decides the vote is the person who counts the votes – that was Pelosi in 2020. She should be indicted for her actions on January 6th, put on trial, and let the jury decide her guilt. I am shocked that Warren Buffet has not tapped her on the shoulder to replace him since her track record in trading and investing beat Buffet – Pelosi the Investor of the Century!

COMMENT: Hi Martin,

In terms of trends determined by higher highs and lower lows, such as your analysis of the Democratic party in the US, stats like the crazy one below could probably tell a similar tale pertaining to the global warming fraud.

Just yesterday, a friend and I considered that winters in this part of Arkansas are colder than when I was a kid. While I don’t have the data to back it up, anecdotally, the winter trend is towards colder norms rather than warmer norms. Four years ago was a record low (in my lifetime) at 12 below.

Regards,

FA in Arkansas

REPLY: We have a lot of weather data, and this entire claim of global warming and that humans are the cause of climate change is not only stupid, it is arrogant. There is no evidence of what these people claim. The English Court ruled against Al Gore and his movie that his climate film presented nine ‘errors’ and was thus inappropriate. The climate zealots want to ignore that ruling and pretend it never happened.

Here is the data from New York City with records back to 1869. There is a normal climate cycle, and nothing shows any dramatic change in trends. We are headed into colder weather, and let us hope that the rise in volcanic activity does not produce one or two VE7 eruptions. Our computer warns that we are also at rise of a rise in volcanic activity. That can block the sun and result in a volcanic winter, so you should have food stashed for crops will fail during a volcanic winter, and people will starve.

There is a cycle to everything, including climate!

The newly formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is tracing the long, complex trail of government spending. US taxpayers deserve to know where their money is spent. The US Treasury Department should be able to provide a clear account of government spending as it is responsible for processing trillions in government payments per year. It has been revealed that the US Treasury has not been doing its part.

Americans provide the US Treasury Department with their hard-earned dollars every tax season, and throughout the year for that matter. The agency is tasked with managing the government’s finances, paying all government bills, and collecting taxes and duties. It supervises national banks and thrift institutions. The agency is supposed to aid in guiding international policy and maintaining relationships with foreign institutions and governments to maintain economic stability globally.

Who is in charge? Top civil servant at the Treasury, David Lebryk, unexpectedly left his office as soon as the DOGE investigation began. Lebryk forfeited his government pension and career instead of complying. He has since been replaced by Scott Bessent who has provided DOGE with access to the federal payments system.

As it turns out, the Treasury Department has not denied a request for payment in 22 years. So whenever a bureaucrat or government official wanted the Treasury Department to pay for something, the answer was always YES. Musk recently accused Treasury officials of “breaking the law every hour of every day by approving payments that are fraudulent or do not match the funding laws passed by Congress.”

The establishment does not want transparency. Senator Elizabeth Warren penned a letter to Bessent to express her concern over the investigation. “It is extraordinarily dangerous to meddle with the critical systems that process trillions of dollars of transactions each year, are essential to preventing a default on federal debt, and ensure that tens of millions of Americans receive their Social Security checks, tax refunds and Medicare benefits,” wrote Ms. Warren, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee.

What are they hiding? Every search result will provide you with reasons why DOGE should not investigate the Treasury. Yet, funding revealed by independent watchdog agencies already provides us some insight.

RealClear Investigations found that the department paid out $1.3 billion in federal benefits to deceased individuals. FEMA has been granted $70 billion to pay for COVID-19 costs through 2026, but there is no current pandemic. Open the Books found that $38.7 million was spent on DEI hires. It has been revealed that IRS employees are above the law and owed a collective $50 million in unpaid taxes in 2023. Then we have asinine spending on programs like the dangerous National Institutes of Health. The US Treasury sent the NIH $33 million to operate a small island to study monkey behavior, and provided them an additional $3.7 million to research gambling behavior in monkeys. The University of Michigan received $12 million to test methamphetamine on monkeys, and a lab in Florida was awarded $477,000 to toy with hormones and create transgender monkeys.

People are outraged that Musk and his team have access to the US financial system, but what on Earth were the people with prior access permitting? Everyone with access has passed the same clearances and background checks. Amid America’s debt crisis it is paramount to provide transparency to the people. This search is trickling into other agencies as we are seeing with the likes of USAID. Perhaps this will be the term that Trump actually drains the swamp.

Canada has followed Mexico in a recent move to expand border security to temporarily delay tariffs. Justin Trudeau announced that $1.3 billion will go into a border plan, including new technology, equipment, and personnel. Trudeau said he will be appointing a Fentanyl Czar to oversee drug enforcement and will spend C$200 million on a new intelligence directive to handle drug-related crimes.

The peculiar aspect is that ALL of this was agreed upon last year. Public Safety Canada published “The Government of Canada’s Border Plan: significant investments to strengthen border security and our immigration system” on December 18, 2024, outlining the same plan to inject C$1.3 billion into US-Canada border security.

As the agency noted:

“Canada is investing $1.3 billion to bolster security at the border and strengthen the immigration system, all while keeping Canadians safe. This includes $667.5M for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, $355.4M for the Canada Border Services Agency, $180M over 6 years for the Communications Security Establishment, $77.7M for Health Canada, and $20M over five years for Public Safety Canada.”

The initial proposal did not include a specified Fentanyl Czar but Canada had agreed to increase border security significantly. Days ago, Canada was planning to implement retaliatory tariffs specifically against Republican-led states. The press is cheering this news as a victory for Trump, but I fail to see what measures have changed aside from Canada expediting its border security pl21,889 pounds of fentanyl an.

The fentanyl crisis with Canada has been overstated. America seized 43 pounds of fentanyl last year, amounting to 0.2% of all fentanyl seized last year. Mexico, on the other hand, was responsible for 96.6% of fentanyl seized at the border or 21,158 pounds. The amount of fentanyl seized at the Canadian border did increase from 2023, but only by 2 lbs.

Were the tariffs a bluff? The markets do not like this volatility. The central banks will not appreciate this confusion as they have no way of knowing how to move forward with these tariffs up in the air. The central banks are always attempting to interpret future geopolitical events, and it is nearly impossible for them to do so when massive plans change at the eleventh hour. And what about the companies who need to price in these tariffs? Will they be forced to do so preemptively?

If Trump’s concern is genuinely about securing the border, then Trump has won. Mexico and Canada are working to secure the border as promised immediately. If his concern is to bring manufacturing back to America, then we have a bigger problem on our hands. Canada is simply making good on their promise from last year, but this is not a new development. Trade between the former alliance will become clearer once the USMCA deal is renegotiated.