TACO is misleading. TASAD: Trump Always Seeks A Deal.
Apart from literal deaths, this has torched American military and diplomatic credibility across the globe. It was basically guaranteed to, with the only potential slim upside for America being a demonstration that their military might when applied ruthlessly might dramatically punish their victims as a warning to others. And it has so far failed at that.
As far as I can tell, the process for playing the president like a fiddle goes like this:
1. Start a conflict where he feels like he can't just bully his way out of it with his usual combination of threats and childish insults.
2. Get him emotionally invested in getting a deal. He won't care whether the deal is any good, just that there is one.
3. In the negotiations, tell him what you want in a way that it sounds like you're making concessions. In fact, you're getting exactly what you want.
4. Let him announce it as a big win for himself. Let him think that he got what he wanted and is the greatest negotiator ever.
5. Periodically send him notes or phone calls telling him how awesome you think he is.
Kim Jong Un did exactly this. So did Xi Jinping. So probably did Vladimir Putin. And I suspect other world leaders have taken note.
^^ This ^^ was in 2020. You can now add the IRGC to the list at the end.
Glad that even right-wing US policy commentators now use that word, I thought only Europeans used for him. The right direction
Although, in this case, given recent news about prediction market plays, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the whole farce of a “ceasefire” was just prediction market manipulation. (Well, that and TACO Tuesday so Trump could get out of following through on his threat of genocide. One spot of sanity, if you can call it that, in a shit sandwich of the stupidest US foreign policy blunder since the war in Vietnam.)
And this is exactly the opposite of how trade works. Trade only happens if both parties have something to gain from it.