James Clapper walks through Trump's favorite negotiation technique: Coercion

Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper noted that President Donald Trump has a knack for negotiations based on completely ridiculous and false information.

In an interview with CNN's Don Lemon, the host brought up that the president claims he has a "secret plan" that he's gotten Mexico to agree to on trade. Mexico has discounted Trump's account, saying that what they agreed to was back in December, and that it appears Trump has merely backed down on his trade threats.

"That seems to be the default technique is coercion," said Clapper. "So, we’re going to coerce Iran and North Koreans by ratcheting up sanctions. And then worse, coercing allies like Mexico. That’s a favorite technique."

He noted that China is a little different stripe because they have far more economic power and could do a greater amount of harm.

"If they wanted to start coercing us that could be not so nice," Clapper said. "And I just don’t know that — and I think if Xi [Jinping] — I didn’t realize that, if Xi has said he’s not going to meet, that’s not good."

Watch the full clip below: