Jill Lawrence

USA TODAY Opinion

Editor's Note: This column originally appeared in April when Congress managed to avoid a government shutdown by passing a compromise spending plan..

Every time President Trump changes his mind about a fundamental position in a matter of minutes because somebody said something to him, somewhere out there a few negotiators do not get their wings. They get hives and a migraine.

Trump’s recent dizzying reversal on the North American Free Trade Agreement reportedly came about when two Cabinet secretaries showed him a map of who'd be hurt if he killed the pact with Canada and Mexico: his own voters. But you would not be safe in assuming Trump will change his mind if he learns something will hurt his voters. If that were the case, he’d be trying to save Obamacare instead of destroy it. There is plenty of evidence and even a map that show the House Republican health plan would hit hardest by far in the states he carried.

Maybe Trump’s position depends on the views of the relevant Cabinet member (Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price is a fierce opponent of Obamacare). Or which way the wind is blowing among Republicans in Congress (they like NAFTA, and they ran on repealing Obamacare). Maybe the key is what a foreign leader says. Fundamental flips have been known to happen following such tutorials — that is, conversations.

The only constants with Trump are unpredictability and expediency. These are not, suffice it to say, the traditional cornerstones of getting to yes in politics. The real pillars are trust and discretion. Can you rely on your negotiating partner to be consistent, to not leak or tweet or make counterproductive headlines, to be truly interested in a win-win outcome and understand what that will take?

This is how political compromises are achieved, as I reported in my book, The Art of the Political Deal. The Trump White House, however, is a gush of leaks. Trump himself is obsessed with winners, losers and public relations. It’s unclear from day to day where he stands on issues, whether he is familiar with them and whether he even cares. This has turned off Democrats and Republicans alike.

Nor do Trump’s explanations increase confidence in his reliability as a negotiating partner. He didn’t realize health care was so complicated until he became president. He also apparently didn’t realize that he’d need China’s help with North Korea, that NATO might be useful, that NAFTA was actually doing some good, and that Mexico could not be bullied into paying for a border wall. Thus NATO is no longer obsolete. China is not going to be branded a currency manipulator. And that border wall could turn into fencing, technology and manpower financed by U.S. taxpayers.

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The obvious solution to Trump’s compulsive disruption would be to cut him out of the negotiating loop — let some experienced hands and Congress take care of things. But there’s no way to do that. This president enjoys hurling curve balls and wrenches, whether it’s threatening to move on from health care if the House couldn’t pass a bill (that lasted less than a month) or tweeting provocatively about Puerto Rico’s problems paying for Medicaid (an issue congressional negotiators were discussing as they worked last week to avoid a government shutdown).

If Trump suddenly demands a tax plan to beat the 100-day clock, as happened last week, drop everything — health care, funding the government, the complicated planning for the real tax push — and start scribbling on that napkin. One can only hope he doesn’t suddenly demand an immediate attack on North Korea. Napkin time.

Successful negotiators of the past did not have to deal with public presidential ultimatums and social media outbursts. For instance, House Speaker Paul Ryan and Sen. Patty Murray negotiated a major budget deal in 2013 when they chaired their respective Budget committees. They got to know each other over several months, and nothing they said to each other in confidence ended up in the news. They knew it was important that both could claim some wins. And what constituted a win didn’t change. Ryan and his party had longstanding positions, as did Murray, President Obama and their party. Some things were simply non-negotiable; others had wiggle room. These were familiar to both sides, and they stayed constant.

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Another success was a 2014 public lands package that included scores of development and conservation projects and left out scores of others. Leaks and indecision would have blown it up. But House and Senate negotiators, a sprawling cast from both parties, did not go wobbly or public. They all certainly had plenty to complain about. An acre for a cemetery to expand that was counted on the development side of the ledger? A permanent end to eminent domain as a tool to protect parks, rivers and wilderness? And yet no one was out there on Twitter bemoaning the horror of it all. They kept everything quiet until they had a final product. Their trust in one another had not been misplaced.

Fragmentation in Washington, between Republicans and Democrats but also among Republicans themselves, means we're in for months of intensive negotiation to get anything done. This week, Trump and lawmakers need a deal to keep the government open and funded until Oct. 1. By fall, Congress will have to raise the debt ceiling to keep America solvent. Deals will be necessary to move forward on health care, tax reform, infrastructure spending and Trump's enormously contentious budget proposal.

But no amount of talking will get anyone anywhere if members of Congress can’t trust Trump to stick to a position, forgo revenge and threats, and demonstrate convincingly that he’s interested in more than his own polling, branding and wealth. Trump said he alone could fix Washington. At the moment, there's a real case that he alone is breaking it.

Jill Lawrence is the commentary editor of USA TODAY and author of The Art of the Political Deal: How Congress Beat the Odds and Broke Through Gridlock. Follow her on Twitter: @JillDLawrence

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