There are limitations to President Trump’s transactional view of the world.
This is evident in his growing tension with Elon Musk, which risks creating political problems that threaten his agenda. Trump usually gets his way through a mix of flattery, favors and intimidation, but Musk is less inclined than most to respond to these techniques.
Musk holds a lot of cards. His Tesla factories employ tens of thousands of American workers. His SpaceX rockets underpin our national aspirations in space. He is also the wealthiest person on the planet, and his wealth facilitates a natural tendency to speak out when his principles are challenged. That was illustrated in late 2023 when he invited advertisers to stay off his social media platform.
It is possible to disagree with everything Musk does and still concede that the man is principled. This is why our less principled President is struggling to understand Musk’s hostility to the tax and spending bill, the oddly named One Big Beautiful Bill Act, so named after an utterance by Trump.
Musk carried out his work at the Department of Government Efficiency without humanity and with childish antics. But if his methods were wrong, his beliefs were real. His opposition to a spending bill that negates his work by increasing federal debt by more than $2 trillion is rooted in deeply held principles.
His life would be easier and his businesses more secure if he had stayed quiet and joined other Republicans in supporting a bill they know leads our nation one step closer to fiscal ruin. Musk is different. He was willing to alienate himself from liberal consumers by taking up his position at DOGE and supporting Trump, but equally willing to alienate himself from MAGA consumers by opposing the Trump tax bill on principle.
This type of principled stand is difficult for someone like Trump to understand, and I believe he is being honest when he says he can’t understand Musk’s opposition to the bill. In Trump’s eyes, he offered Musk a favorable transaction: Publicly support my policies, and I will maintain your access and influence. Musk refused the deal because staying quiet meant violating his principles. This is foreign to Trump, who values public appearance and profit over principles.
Musk isn’t the only person President Trump is struggling to understand. Chinese president Xi Jinping is equally principled and believes what he says about the 21st century belonging to China. Xi is committed to erasing the last vestiges of China’s subordination to the West. He is telling the truth when he discusses the belief that China should play a central role in the world and dominate Asia. The Chinese president is committed to taking control of Taiwan because its de facto independence represents a contemporary manifestation of an earlier and weaker time in Chinese history.
American power can deter Xi from invading, but there is no deal imaginable that will cause him to change his mind about the inevitability of seizing Taiwan. Xi holds the principle too deeply to let it go, and here again Trump struggles to understand. Xi cannot capitulate to American demands on either trade or Taiwan without resurrecting in his own mind the idea of a weak and subordinate China. This is one important reason among several why he hasn’t acquiesced to American demands on trade and seems to be preparing for a prolonged standoff — something that probably wasn’t part of Trump’s initial plan. Xi’s principles make it difficult for our transactional president to understand the man and predict his actions.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is another example of someone Trump fundamentally fails to understand. Putin acts immorally but is still more principled than he is transactional. Trump’s offer to reintegrate Russia into the world economy and deepen American economic ties with Russian companies might have worked to end the war in Ukraine if Putin were as transactional as Trump.
Our president offered Putin an objectively good deal — an escape from relative isolation and a chance to increase Russia’s national wealth and the personal wealth of its president and closest collaborators. But Putin is being honest when he says Ukraine should be part of Russia. He has so far been unwilling to accept Trump’s generous offers because they don’t comport with his principled belief.
Like Xi, Putin refuses to accept even the appearance of Russian subordination to the West. His principled stand means Trump’s transactional offers are unlikely to succeed. American interests are better served by forcing Putin’s hand — by weaking Russia’s economy and hurting it militarily by supporting Ukraine’s resistance. Trump cannot easily see this because he doesn’t understand how the Russian president sees the world. Putin is not primarily transactional — he pursues his principles until sufficient counterforce is applied.
This is a different way of engaging with the world than Trump’s dealmaking. It requires an American approach to Russia that Trump has so far failed to understand and embrace.
Trump believes everyone has a price and will eventually make a deal. He has been successful because he has often been proven right in this. Consider, for example, the Republicans in Congress who sacrificed their principles to safeguard their reelections by supporting a fiscally irresponsible bill. Their actions once again affirmed Trump’s instinct that everyone has a price.
But not everyone is so transactional as that. Men like Musk, Xi and Putin see the world through a principled lens. As good as he is at dominating transactional people, Trump struggles to understand and then anticipate and control the actions of people who are primarily guided by principle.
This has political consequences for Trump himself and geopolitical consequences for our nation. Until Trump better understands the motivations of principled people, our country will continue offering deals to people who are entirely uninterested. Trump is also risking his legacy and agenda by antagonizes potential critics like Musk by miscalculating their reactions when his actions violate their principles.
One of Trump’s most redeeming qualities is his honest desire for peace, but his transactional approach to America’s adversaries will never create the stability he seeks.
Just as he should have anticipated Musk’s opposition to the spending bill, he should have anticipated Xi’s intransigence on trade and Putin’s desire to continue his war. The understanding that some people act on principle is a blind spot for our transactional president, and this makes it difficult for him to understand the principled parts of the world.
Colin Pascal is a retired Army lieutenant colonel and a graduate student in the School of Public Affairs at American University in Washington.