Summary

The book begins with an episode in which Gary Cohn, formerly the head of Goldman Sachs and then President Trump's top economic advisor, saw a one-page letter, dated September 5, 2017, that Trump had written to the President of South Korea to pull out of the United States-Korea Free Trade Agreement, or KORUS. Woodward believes this treaty is essential to the economic and military ties between the two countries, as well as to American access to covert information about North Korea's military maneuvers. Trump, moved to ire by the U.S. trade deficit with South Korea, wanted to end this agreement, but Cohn could not understand how the country could sacrifice this access to top-secret intelligence. Cohn removed this letter from Trump's desk, and, in the chaos of the White House, Trump did not realize it was missing. Rob Porter, the staff secretary to...