July 25, 2026, 3:01 a.m. ET
WASHINGTON – Call it the art of the bluff.
Bombing Iran back to the Stone Age. Threatening to double the cost of Chinese imports. Filing multibillion-dollar lawsuits.
President Donald Trump storms ahead when embarking on a new policy or seeking to intimidate an adversary. But agreements often come after he trims his sails.
The commander-in-chief called Iranian leaders “very smart people, very good negotiators” after hammering out a framework for peace that later fell apart. He touted a “fantastic” trade deal that came after meeting with the “great leader,” China’s President Xi Jinping. And he settled lawsuits for fractions of a percent of what he’d demanded – or for the promise of avoiding tax audits.
It’s a strategy Trump learned in the bare-knuckle world of New York real estate development.
“I went in and asked for the world – for an unprecedented tax abatement – on the assumption that even if I got cut back, the break might still be sufficient,” Trump wrote in his 1987 book “Trump: The Art of the Deal.” “In a funny way, it was like a high stakes poker game in which neither side has very strong cards so both are forced to bluff.”
Here’s a look at how he’s deployed the approach as president.
Iran flips from ‘Stone Ages’ to ‘very smart people’ back to ‘scum’
Trump’s comments on Iran have ranged from the bellicose to the complimentary.
Trump demanded “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!” in a March 6 post. He said in an April 1 post “we are blasting Iran into oblivion or, as they say, back to the Stone Ages!!!” And he said “A whole civilization will die tonight” in an April 7 post.
U.S. and Iranian officials signed a framework June 17 to stop the bombing, halt the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports and reopen the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping in exchange for Tehran’s commitment not to develop nuclear weapons.
“They’re very smart people, very good negotiators,” Trump said.
But after Iran resumed firing on commercial ships in the strait, Trump returned to the harsh talk. He told reporters at a NATO summit that Iranian leaders are “scum” and “sick people.”
“Honestly, they haven’t seen anything yet,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on July 21. “We’ve been nice.”
China tariff talks range from ‘extremely hostile’ to ‘very friendly’
As the American eagle battled the Chinese dragon over trade, Trumps imposed tariffs on imports from China last year that threatened to reach 157% against “an extraordinarily aggressive” and “extremely hostile” position.
“I don’t think that’s sustainable for them,” he said.
But Trump repeatedly postponed or withdrew tariffs as he negotiated a trade agreement in October with the United States’ third-largest trading partner.
“I think it was a very friendly meeting,” Trump said in reaching an agreement with Xi. “It was a good meeting for two very large, powerful countries. That’s the way we should get along with a large powerful country.”
Despite the haggling, the government is collecting much more in tariffs under Trump. The average tariff rate for all imports is about 9%, according to the Tax Policy Center. Tariffs averaged 2.5% in 2024, the year before Trump’s second term, according to the Tax Foundation.
“I think the president has viewed tariffs as an opening salvo,” Dave Townsend, a partner at Dorsey & Whitney representing foreign clients in trade litigation, told USA TODAY.
Scott Lincicome, vice president of general economics at the libertarian Cato Institute, said threatening higher amounts and eventually settling for less still left tariffs nearly four times higher than when Trump returned to office.
“In the trade space, Trump’s strategy is always maximalist at first, very public, very much trying to get everyone to overreact and then settling for what he actually wanted and having the temperature actually go down because everyone expected the worst,” Lincicome told USA TODAY. “There is some measure of relief when the worst doesn’t happen, even if you’re worse off.”
Trump warns of China election meddling but then acknowledges US does too
Another clash arose July 16, when Trump released a batch of declassified intelligence documents and accused China of trying to undermine the 2020 election. But a few days later, he downplayed the threat and said both countries meddle with each other.
Trump accused China of stealing 220 million voter files from states across the country in what he called “the largest compromise of election data in history,” although election experts said states sell the information.
Trump also said during that primetime televised speech that China sought to influence U.S. business leaders to “turn against” the president during his first term and paid reporters to write negatively about him.
“The Chinese government wanted (the) U.S. president to lose the next election, and the reason they wanted me to lose is because they knew I was wise to them,” Trump said.
But when reporters asked July 21 about consequences for China, Trump downplayed the threat by suggesting the U.S. government does similar things to them.
“Well, we’ll talk to them about it. It took place a long time ago,” Trump told reporters the Oval Office. “I think China’s maybe a little bit different today than it was then. But look, they do things. And we do things to them. I’ll be honest. We do things to them, too. It’s not a one-way street.”
Trump shrugs off Supreme Court losses after promoting their significance
Trump worked the refs at the Supreme Court for his priorities of imposing tariffs and restricting birthright citizenship, but then shrugged off losses in both cases.
Trump said in December that a ruling against him in the tariffs case would be the “biggest threat in history to United States National Security.”
“WE’RE SCREWED!” if the court overturns the tariffs, Trump added in a social media post Jan. 12.
But after the Feb. 20 decision, Trump acknowledged other paths to tariffs.
“Yes, I have another way of doing Tariffs, but it is far slower, and more laborious than what was just determined, in a close decision, to be ‘illegal’ or ‘unconstitutional,’ with three powerful, and highly accurate, dissents!” he said on social media May 10.
In another major loss at the high court, Trump argued the country “cannot live with the shackles of Birthright Citizenship,” which he said wasn’t economical or sustainable in a social media post June 11. He reinforced the importance of the case by becoming the first sitting president to attend an oral argument.
But after the court ruled against him on the final day of its term June 30, Trump said another decision released the same day was more important because it confirmed his power to remove the heads of independent agencies.
Regarding the birthright citizenship defeat, “we can easily make it up in Congress through Legislation,” Trump said in a social media post June 30.
Billion-dollar lawsuits settled for millions but still ‘jaw-dropping’
Trump, who frequently went to court before being elected president, hasn’t let his day job keep him from filing multibillion-dollar lawsuits. But in several high-profile cases he settled for millions – less than two-tenths of a percent of his demands – or an agreement to avoid future tax investigations.
For example, Trump filed a lawsuit against ABC in March 2024 after George Stephanopoulos inaccurately said he was found liable for raping columnist E. Jean Carroll in her civil case against him. ABC agreed in December 2024 to pay $15 million to Trump’s presidential library and $1 million for his legal fees.
Trump filed a $10 billion lawsuit in October 2024 over the editing of a “60 Minutes” interview on CBS with his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris. He settled in July 2025 for $16 million from CBS owner Paramount.
Trump has also sued the Wall Street Journal for $10 billion for writing about his relationship with accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and the New York Times for $15 billion for “disparaging articles” during the 2024 campaign. But those cases are unresolved.
Lee Levine, a lawyer who has represented media clients for 35 years, said naming a big price in a lawsuit is common and not unique to Trump.
“Lawyers always put in their complaints outrageous dollar figures, usually just a function of how tired their fingers get in typing zeros at their computers,” Levine said.
The settlements have been wins for Trump even though the numbers are a fraction of what he sought.
But he said the multimillion-dollar settlements, which came before the cases were tested in court, reflected timidity of the media companies seeking to avoid getting on the president’s wrong side.
“The amounts of those settlements standing on their own are jaw-dropping,” Levine said.
Trump, his two older sons and his namesake business filed a $10 billion lawsuit in January against the Internal Revenue Service after a contractor leaked their tax returns to reporters. The lawsuit said the Trumps suffered “reputational and financial harm, public embarrassment” and “unfairly tarnished their business reputations.”
But Trump, who oversees the IRS as president, reached an agreement in May that the IRS wouldn’t audit him for past tax liabilities. The agreement also envisioned a nearly $1.8 billion fund to repay people investigated by the Justice Department, but Trump dropped the provision after a public outcry and a judge is reviewing the agreement.
“This lawsuit was not brought to vindicate rights; it was brought to manipulate the judicial process,” U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams wrote.
Trump sometimes settles for a single rather than try for home run
Some of Trump’s lawsuits have yielded results. Tariffs are being recalibrated. But the evaluation of his foreign policy remains unresolved because the war with Iran grinds on.
In “The Art of the Deal,” Trump wrote about not getting too greedy in financial negotiations.
“If you go for a home run on every pitch, you’re also going to strike out a lot,” Trump wrote. “I try never to leave myself too exposed, even if it means sometimes settling for a triple, a double, or even, on rare occasions, a single.”
In foreign affairs, Trump has shown himself willing to make a deal, openly advocating peace in a way that his predecessors avoided for 47 years of the two countries defining themselves as enemies, according to Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a think tank that emphasizes military restraint and diplomatic engagement.
But Trump’s unpredictability can be unsettling to the other side, Parsi said, because it leaves negotiators uncertain whether the president will uphold his side of a deal.
“Part of it is that he’s coming out with this bluster and then settles for something else,” Parsi told USA TODAY. “It can cause (foreign leaders) to be more cautious. It can cause them to be fearful of what he may do.”
