Jim Sciutto (https://x.com/jimsciutto)
@jimsciutto (https://x.com/jimsciutto)
New: In a phone call with me after U.S.-Canada trade negotiations collapsed, President Trump suggested the US had added conditions late during talks.
“That sounds like me,” Trump responded, when asked about Canadian officials' assertion about US late-stage demands.
It's common strategy for predator-businesspeople:
1) Big Fish sets an artificial deadline for Little Fish to comply or be eaten;
2) Little Fish negotiates feverishly in good faith, obeying Big Fish's artificial deadline;
3) Big Fish announces "DEAL!" but for "details";
4) At 11th hour Big Fish makes new demands, betting that Little Fish will fall prey to momentum and bite off the new demands to not miss out on the whole feast;
5) Little Fish is eaten by Big Fish.
The first four steps in this common predator strategy occurred in the Toilet Nation-True North trade negotiations. But at step five the Little Fish, recognizing the strategy, swam away, not without a bite out of his tail, and not without a nibble of his own out of bloated Big Fish. Now Big Fish has set a new artificial deadline, conveniently after (switching life form metaphors from fish to fowl) Big Fish, already a Lame Duck, could suffer a Quack Attack in November), with a bigger, much bigger, chomp out of Little Fish as punishment for further disobediance. To switch fowl metaphors, it is now a game of Chicken. Will Big Fish-Lame Duck become a TACO consumed by Little Fish?
