After Trump's TPP Withdrawal, What's Next for U.S. Trade Deals?

After Trump's TPP Withdrawal, What's Next for U.S. Trade Deals?

ALWAYS deny, never settle, always countersue. This is the tough philosophy of the notorious mob lawyer who had a remarkable influence on Donald Trump.

The late Roy Cohn, who represented the real estate mogul in a 1970s discrimination lawsuit, is the friend and mentor credited with teaching the new President some of his best tricks.

“He’s been vicious to others in his protection of me,” Mr Trump told New York magazine in 1980.

“He brutalised for you,” he elaborated in 2005.

People close to the pair say the billionaire businessman was deeply influenced by Mr Cohn’s callous worldview and developed his aggressive personal style under the gay, Jewish lawyer’s tutelage.

When the future reality star was accused of racial discrimination against black tenants at his Brooklyn and Queens rental properties, Mr Cohn went on the attack. He filed a $100-million countersuit against the government for “irresponsible” charges and called investigators “Stormtroopers” with “Gestapo-like” tactics.

In the end, they agreed to a consent decree, in which Mr Trump and his father Fred would have to rent to more black tenants and advertise in ethnic minority community newspapers. Mr Cohn paraded it as a victory in the press.

Even then, the power-hungry lawyer saw great promise in 27-year-old Mr Trump, telling gossip columnist Cindy Adams, “this kid is going to own New York.”

Later, he would reportedly boast: “I made Trump successful.”

Mr Cohn became the future president’s closest adviser and confidante, writing uncompromising pre-nuptial agreements for his marriage and filing a headline-grabbing antitrust suit against the National Football League.

He understood the importance of media, calling in stories to newspapers just as years later Mr Trump would pose as his own spokesman.

The lawyer introduced Mr Trump to Mahattan’s social and political elite, according to the New York Times, spending evenings out at Studio 54. Mr Cohn defended his protege against a growing list of enemies, teaching him his signature smearing of opponents and “bluster as brand”.

Mr Cohn’s clients included politicians, businessmen and the mafia. He sent a Jewish couple accused of spying for the Soviet Union to the electric chair, was close to FBI chief Edgar J. Hoover and found fame as chief counsel to Senator Joseph McCarthy in his hunt for communists. He represented mafia bosses “Fat Tony” Salerno, head of New York’s most powerful crime family the Genoveses, and Paul Castellano, from the second largest family, the Gambinos.

Mr Trump leveraged Mr Cohn’s mob associates while building Trump Tower, according to Politico, paying inflated concrete prices to the mafia families and avoiding construction delays or trouble from the corrupt unions.

His dealings with mob-controlled companies and unions and connection to organised crime continued long after the lawyer died.

In 1986, Mr Cohn was disbarred for attempting to steal from a client, lying and other unprofessional conduct, despite Mr Trump testifying he was of good character. The lawyer died of AIDS that same year.

He may have passed away three decades ago, but this clever, cynical, firebrand’s legacy lives on in the White House. He would have liked it that way.