Whether driving wedges between creditors during his real estate career or between adversarial institutions and foreign countries as president, Trump consistently resorts to what may well be his favorite tactic: divide and conquer.
Trump learned early in his first Administration that many of his initiatives could be blocked by collective action—whether by Congress, his own Republican Party, the business community, U.S. trading partners, financial markets revolting in unison, or other pillars of society. Across history, strongmen have always understood that their intimidation can be neutralized by unified opposition.
To Trump, alliances resemble the dangerous unified effort of tiny Lilliputians binding the great giant Gulliver with paralyzing strings in Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. While Trump has probably not read Swift, the metaphor fits: he instinctively resists unified action by perceived adversaries because collective power constrains his leverage.
By pitting others against each other—shunting them from one disadvantage to the next and keeping them embroiled in draining internecine squabbles—Trump, and Trump alone, can rise above the chaos he creates, as the all-powerful arbiter navigating deftly between warring parties fighting for his attention and blessing.
This is not accidental tantrum behavior. It is a calculated strategy of creating maximum leverage for himself while keeping his adversaries fragmented, off balance, and without recourse.
Trump uses “divide and conquer” as an intentional strategy to weaken his targets and to bring them to heel. Consider the methodical way in which he attacked, sequentially, our nation’s most well-known law firms, issuing executive orders seeking to strangle the business of several big law firms that represented or hired those who had challenged his actions in courts and forcing them to come to the negotiating table, hat in hand. This was classic divide and conquer. Trump knew that if he took on the entire legal profession at once, he might end up coalescing and uniting all the big law firms against him—which would be a nightmare scenario. However, by throwing carrots at certain law firms—and sticks at others, Trump created the division and dissent necessary to weaken law firms he attacked and prevent collective action from forming to resist those attacks. Indeed, when one law firm tried to rally its peers to stand up to Trump together, they themselves became a target while its peers quickly slinked away in fear—which was exactly the reaction Trump wanted.
Internationally, Trump has never, in any sector, met an alliance he particularly liked. It’s not a coincidence that Trump has routinely attacked NATO, NAFTA, the EU, and every alliance that has underpinned the post-WWII world order. One can speculate that the reason is simple, and once again, it’s applying the same principle to the global stage: Divide and conquer doesn’t work in the face of a strong oppositional alliance. Trump is always lashing out at these international alliances, even those composed of the US’s historic allies, because they get in the way of his preferred transactional approach to world affairs, pitting foreign countries against each other in competition for his goodwill. Divide and conquer requires personalization. Canada versus Mexico. France versus Germany. One-off negotiations preserve maximum personal leverage; collective blocs dilute it.
Time and time again, Trump’s adversaries have had to learn the hard way that if they wish to counter Trump effectively, they cannot allow themselves to be picked off one-by-one and fall victim to this timeless divide-and-conquer tactic. As Benjamin Franklin famously quipped, “We must all hang together, or surely we will all hang separately”. That is a lesson which leaders across sectors, ranging from CEOs of our nation’s largest businesses to the presidents of our top universities, have had to bear in mind when staring down the ruthlessly effective divide-and-conquer stratagem.
To outside observers, Trump’s divide and conquer tactic can appear impulsive, petty, or tantrum-driven In reality, it reflects a deeply embedded strategic impulse for maximum power and domination. Trump prefers a landscape of fragmented actors competing for his approval over a unified front capable of restraining him.
Where others build bridges, Trump builds walls.
Where others seek harmony, Trump seeks leverage.
Where others rely on coalitions, Trump relies on division.
Divide and conquer is not a side effect of Trump’s leadership. It is a core feature of it.
And understanding that instinct is essential to understanding Trump.
