Learning from Trump’s Tactics in 2025
As we step out from 2025, many organisations are facing tighter commercial pressure: uncertainty, tougher competition, and faster decision cycles.
This post isn’t about politics. It’s about recognising a negotiation style that is increasingly showing up in commercial settings — and knowing what to practise so you don’t get pulled into reacting.
Trump’s negotiation approach is high-pressure and designed to create movement. The practical question for negotiators is simple:
"If the other party uses extreme anchors, rigid framing, urgency and unpredictability ... can you keep control of your thinking and the structure of the conversation?"
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The Trump Negotiation Pattern
The pattern is consistent:
- Extreme opening offers (anchoring)
- Win/loss framing (simplifying outcomes into binaries)
- Artificial urgency (compressed decision time)
- Unpredictability (disrupting preparation and confidence)
- Public signalling (adding stakeholder pressure)
Some of these behaviours can produce short-term outcomes. They can also damage trust and long-term value. Either way, commercial negotiators need to be ready for them.
Primary Tactic: Anchoring — and the counter-skill that matters
Anchoring works because the first credible number or position becomes the reference point for everything that follows.
The common mistake is trying to “argue the anchor”.
A stronger approach is to reset the reference point:
- slow the pace
- test the basis for the anchor
- introduce alternative reference points (benchmarks, constraints, precedents)
- summarise what is workable and what is not
This only becomes reliable through practice.
How to use an Anchor in a negotiation
Supporting tactics that make you harder to move
1) Framing
If the other party controls the frame, you’ll find yourself defending instead of negotiating.
Practise: 4–6 minute round. Observer only tracks one thing: who set the frame, and how quickly it got challenged or re-framed.
How to use Framing in negotiation
2) Weaponised Confusion
If the other party changes position rapidly or introduces ambiguity, your job is not to “keep up”. It’s to regain structure.
Practise: scripted unpredictability drill — counterpart must introduce one confusing move every 60 seconds. Your job is to restore clarity with questions, summary, and pace control.
How to weaponise confusion in negotiation
3) Pause, Consider, Respond
Under pressure, speed feels like competence. It’s usually the opposite.
Practise: agree a rule: after any extreme statement, you must pause before responding. Observer marks whether you actually did it, and what changed.
How to use “Pause, Consider, Respond” in negotiations
4) Summary
Summarising is not politeness. It is control. It forces confirmation or correction and stops the negotiation drifting.
Practise: “summary every 90 seconds” drill — especially immediately after confusion or urgency cues.
How to use a Summary in a negotiation
The Trump wake-up call for negotiators
The commercial world isn’t becoming gentler. High-pressure tactics are normalising.
So the goal for 2025+ is practical:
- become harder to rush
- become harder to anchor
- become harder to confuse
- become faster at regaining structure
Explore negotiation tactics and techniques
Want to practise this properly?
If you want to train these skills through short, repeated rounds (with observers tracking behaviour), use your FREE Taster and explore the tactic pages above so your practice is structured, not random.
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