An Aside: How to Negotiate

I have no inside information on what is going on with the China trade deal. I only know what I read on the screen. Here's a personal story that may be relevant.

When I was younger I sold my first house. The buyer was antsy, and it was hard to come up with a price both sides could live with.  We finally did, and met to sign the deal. At the signing, the buyer came up with another demand. He told me that after relooking at the house, he wanted a discount for some issue (forgot what it was). Since he had previously had an engineer go over it, this seemed pretty fishy.
My father said that this was a typical although somewhat sleezy negotiating tactic. One side figures  the other has become psychologically invested in the deal, and will be willing to give a little more to get it done. He recommended I say no. I did. A couple of days later we signed the deal. I gave him a very small discount (I think about 0.1%) to sooth his ego. In return part of his down payment was made non-refundable, to sooth mine. The deal went through smoothly.

Sound familiar?