Trump used the same staging he used for the govt shutdown. There never was a deal in the offing, not since the beginning. Now the Faithful are singing his glory for walking away from his own illusion.
The Trump Organization has been described as a Mom-n-Pop business with no Mom. Trump seems to have also been surrounded by yes-men of limited mental acuteness who never contradicted him. I think the only real businesses he's ever been in charge of with shareholders and a board have been the casinos, which he bankrupted.
Someone once described his private business MO of stiffing contractors as "ill-suited" to foreign policy and trade - to paraphrase: "There's not another Canada you can go to after you've screwed them over."
The tactic of just walking away from a bad deal is very different in national government than it is in the real estate business. If two sides can't come to an agreement and a building doesn't get built, that is just the way things go. You walk away, forget about it and move on to the next deal. But if two sides can't come to an agreement and the government shuts down you can't just walk away.
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