Analysis: Trump's repetition of the agreement with Iran creates a credibility gap
A CNN survey revealed that Donald Trump has said he is close to reaching an agreement with Iran at least 37 times since the beginning of the ceasefire. This Tuesday (9), Trump repeated the statement again, stating that the agreement could be concluded "in two or three days".
International analyst Fernanda Magnotta analyzed the behavior and classified it within a recurring pattern in negotiations conducted by Trump. According to her, there is a specific term used in circumstances like this in the field of international negotiations: the "credibility gap".
"We are basically talking about situations in which a given leader repeatedly announces a result that he considers imminent, but that result, in practice, does not materialize", explained Magnotta in a comment on CNN 360º this Tuesday.
The direct consequence of this behavior, according to the analyst, is that markets, allies and even adversaries begin, in a certain way, to disregard these statements.
Magnotta noted that, in this case, the problem is not necessarily not reaching an agreement, but "creating a specific temporal expectation and failing to deliver."
Pattern identified in other conflicts
The analyst pointed out previous cases in which this pattern manifested itself clearly. The first example cited was the negotiations with North Korea, when Trump met with Kim Jong-un. In 2019, he was the first US president to set foot on North Korean territory.
"It was considered a historic, unprecedented event, but in practice, little progress was made after that handshake," said Magnotta.
She highlighted that Trump promised transformative announcements that never materialized: "Beyond the symbolic effect, the relationship with the United States never changed and North Korea continued its narrative, its offensive against the West."
The second example mentioned by Magnotta was the war between Russia and Ukraine. She recalled that Trump promised quick solutions to the conflict several times. The analyst recalls that, during the election campaign, the North American president even stated that he would end the war within 24 hours. None of these promises materialized.
"We begin to realize that this corresponds to a kind of pattern, which in Trump's reading probably has a strategic touch. It's as if he was using a certain public optimism to conduct a negotiation process, it's a tool", assessed Magnotta.
Political cost
Fernanda Magnotta warned that, despite its possible strategic nature, the cost of this stance "in the short term is very high". "There is no clear predictability, we don't necessarily have guarantees that this will happen and the public opinion clock tends to be a little impatient," he said.
The analyst also highlighted the contradiction present in the current scenario: at the same time that Trump promises negotiating progress with Iran, he himself declared that an American helicopter had been shot down by Iranian forces and that there would be retaliation.
"The flame of war continues to burn and escalation in conflicts can sometimes happen from very small sparks", concluded Magnotta.
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Source: CNN