US President Donald Trump: threat, deadline, deal – how successful is Trump with it?

Power gives threats weight. If you come from the mouth of US President Donald Trump, he can be sure that he is listened to. He often connects his threats to a deadline of a few weeks or months – and the demand for a deal.

The latest prominent case: Trump’s behavior towards Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. If there was no deal within 50 days of the end of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, the United States would raise high tariffs against Russia’s trading partners, Trump threatened last week. It remains to be seen whether he is going through this by then no agreement. It would not be the first postponed deadline.

In the first six months of Trump’s second presidency, this mixture of threats, deadlines and the urging on deals could be observed in very different contexts. How successful is the Republican with it? Three examples:

“90 deals in 90 days”? – Customs table and customs letters

Trump’s trade policy is probably the most obvious example and one that shows that deadlines can be flexible with him, just like his definition of a deal. At the beginning of April, Trump held a table in the camera in the rose garden of the White House. To be seen on it: so-called mutual tariffs against numerous countries with which the US government believes that the US government has a particularly large trade deficit.

This caused shock worldwide, and the stock exchanges went downhill. Trump then stopped at least these tariffs for the most part – for 90 days, as it was initially said. This break should be used for negotiations, Trump and his team looked into a strong position: “They burn on it to make a deal.” Please, please, do a deal, I do everything for a deal, “,” said the president about countries affected by his tariffs, shortly before he announced the postponement. His business advisor Peter Navarro considered “90 deals in 90 days”.

It became clear in the weeks after that it is not that easy. After 90 days there were only a few deals, which, if at all, were more like framework agreements than traditional trade agreements.

Shortly before the deadline passed, Trump simply postponed it by a good three weeks to the beginning of August – followed by new threats to trading partners in the form of customs letters. If he threatened the EU on his table in April with tariffs of 20 percent, he went one step further in his letter – now it is about 30 percent. Trump recently described this increased threatening backdrop as a “deal”, but also made it clear that the talks continue. Will there be a real deal in the end? Completely open.

“Today is day 61” – attacks on Iran

Trump’s behavior towards Iran can hardly be viewed in isolation from the allied Israel – which messages he sent to Tehran and the world, but already. They draw the image of a president who is serious with his threats if there is no deal until the deadline he set. In this public representation, it takes a back seat to whether everything actually happens exactly then and exactly as they wanted.

In April, the United States and Iran recovered talks after the Oman’s ice age. The goal: a new nuclear agreement. Previously, Trump had sent a letter to Iran’s highest leader Ali Chamenei and said the hope that Iran would negotiate “because if we have to intervene militarily, it will be terrible”. According to media reports, the US President also set a two-month time frame for the negotiations.

Around two months after it started, another round of talks between Iran and the USA was actually planned, but that did not happen: Israel attacked Iran. Trump presented this on the Truth Social platform as a consequence of a lack of willingness to deal: two months ago, he provided the Iran an ultimatum of 60 days to make a deal, he wrote. “You should have done it! Today is day 61”.

A few days later, the United States attacked Iran’s three most important nuclear systems – and according to Trump, they completely destroyed them. However, there is still a question mark behind the actual extent of the damage. While Trump announced a ceasefire and the end of the twelve -day war between Israel and Iran, the deeper conflict is still unsolved. Trump announced talks again at the end of June. So far, however, no new negotiations between the United States and Iran have been known about its controversial nuclear program.

In any case, the question arises as to how serious Trump’s efforts are around a new atomic deal. Did he really think it was realistic to negotiate such an agreement within a few months? Years passed from the first negotiations to the end of the Vienna nuclear agreement to limit the Iranian nuclear program in 2015. In 2018, Trump unilaterally rose out of this deal – which was not of his – in his first term.

“Go on vacation on July 4th” – Trump’s tax law

Compared to abroad, Trump’s mix of threats and deadlines in Germany seems more effective. His greatest success in his second term in the US Congress so far: the adoption of the law, which is known under the name “One Big Beautiful Bill” (“A big, beautiful law”).

There were also reservations about the tax and expenditure law in their own ranks. But Trump always made it clear that he wants to have it on his desk until the independence day: “We are on schedule – let ourselves go and be ready before she and her family go on vacation on July 4th,” he said about Truth social to the Republican in the House of Representatives after the law had passed the Senate.

For weeks, the President repeatedly exerted pressure on congress members – with success: One day before the end of his deadline, the House of Representatives passed the law. Afterwards, Trump said about his work on party colleagues: “What I did – we talked about how good the law is. I mean, that’s a deal, I think if you think about it.”