Trump, Litigation, and Threats: From Queens to the World Stage

Abstract

Donald Trump’s methods of operating and conducting national security and foreign policy are exactly the same as they would be if he was engaged in real estate transactions and deals. To Donald Trump, trade policy, foreign policy, and national security policy are transactions and zero-sum games. My thesis is straightforward: One can draw a straight line from Donald Trump’s ruthless mode of operating in the contentious world of New York real estate to his operations on the world stage today. From Queens to the world stage, there is a straight line from using threats and litigation to avoid commercial and contractual obligations to using threats and litigation in conducting the US foreign and trade policy. Especially as to policies pertaining to the World Trade Organization and the US–China trade relations. His weaponization of tariffs and economic sanctions is now being wielded as a principal tool of the US foreign policy for the first time since the early 1930s.