Princeton, N.J. - The president needs an economist. Not just any economist; he desperately needs a game theorist, someone who can impress upon him why the negotiating strategy that has (mostly) served him well in his private business utterly fails him now.
Specifically: He needs someone to explain "repeated play" -- and the idea that players may want to strategize differently if they're going to face off multiple times rather than just once.
On Friday, Trump got into a bizarre and awkward public debate with his own U.S. trade representative, Robert E. Lighthizer. On live television, and in front of a laughing Chinese envoy, Lighthizer and Trump argued about whether the "memorandums of understanding" that the United States and China have spent weeks negotiating would be meaningful and enforceable.