Host of nightly show The Program
US President Trump’s approach toward Iran may better be explained by the political timing of the World Cup and the culture of New York real estate dealmaking: performance, delay, leverage and spectacle.
The cadence of Trump’s remarks about Iran belongs less to the world of foreign policy than to the culture that shaped him long before politics did: New York real estate, tabloid combat, and public brinkmanship treated as performance art.
The comparison that comes closest may not come from diplomacy at all, but from David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross, that ruthless portrait of American real-estate sales culture, where power belongs not to the wisest man in the room, but to the most psychologically relentless.
In the film’s most famous scene appears Blake, the sleek corporate predator whose confidence and aggression are treated as forms of intelligence. He does not simply sell real estate. He sells power, status, and the fantasy of invulnerability itself.
Trump comes from that exact culture, though he did not invent it. He emerged from it.
It is difficult to understand Trump’s approach to Iran through the traditional frameworks of Republican foreign policy because Trump does not instinctively speak that language. He speaks the language of the deal, more specifically, the language of the New York deal.
To diplomats, consistency creates stability and ambiguity introduces risk. For Trump, unpredictability is leverage. Negotiation is a psychological contest in which pressure, timing, perception, and dominance become instruments of power.
One week, a deal appears close. The next, Tehran faces catastrophic consequences if it refuses American demands. To conventional policymakers, the reversals can appear chaotic. But those familiar with the culture of aggressive American salesmanship recognize the game: create urgency, destabilize expectations, project strength, keep the other side uncertain.
But Trump’s instincts are tied not only to commerce, but to performance.
The United States is approaching the 2026 FIFA World Cup, one of the largest international spectacles ever hosted on American soil. Beginning next June, the tournament will unfold across multiple cities before a global audience measured not in millions, but billions.
That context may help explain the curious patience embedded in some of his recent remarks on Iran.
In a Truth Social post on Sunday, Trump insisted negotiators should “not rush into a deal” because “time is on our side.” Pressure on Iran, he wrote, would remain in place until an agreement was “reached, certified, and signed.”
In other words: “get them to sign on the line which is dotted.”
The negotiations with Iran may therefore be less about immediate resolution than about the management of instability until after the World Cup final, a spectacle Trump instinctively understands.
A regional escalation or collapsing diplomatic process in the weeks leading up to the tournament would threaten precisely the atmosphere Trump values most: the image of American strength, prosperity, and control.
This does not mean the negotiations are insincere or a deal is impossible. But it does suggest observers should be cautious about interpreting every public signal as evidence of imminent breakthrough or collapse.
He is not fundamentally opposed to negotiation with Iran. On the contrary, he appears deeply attracted to the possibility of a grand bargain. What he seeks, however, is not simply a workable agreement, but a visible triumph dramatic enough to dominate headlines and simple enough to market politically.
This may be the most distinctly American dimension of Trump’s foreign policy: the belief that geopolitical success must also function as branding. Trump wants ownership of the moment as much as he wants a deal. He wants the image of resolution itself: Iran returning to the table, concessions publicly framed as victories, history compressed into a photograph.
But history rarely cooperates with theatrical instincts. Foreign policy does not bend as easily as commercial real-estate negotiation because nations are not distressed assets waiting to be restructured.
The Islamic Republic measures survival differently: absorbing pressure can itself become a form of victory.
Salesmanship can generate headlines, pressure, and even temporary breakthroughs. But there are crises in which personality eventually collides with structure. That may be the clearest lesson of Trump’s long and unfinished confrontation with Tehran.
The art of the deal becomes far more complicated when the other side sees the conflict as a question of historical survival, when the only thing both sides have in common is a profound sense of mistrust.
Whether there will be a hostile takeover after the World Cup remains unclear. But one does not need to be a geopolitical genius to recognize the underlying logic of pressure if one understands the culture from which Trump emerged.
As Blake says in Glengarry Glen Ross, “The only thing that counts in this life is to get them to sign on the line which is dotted.”
