When I build a building, I let various builders and architects compete for the contract. Why? Because it sharpens their game, makes them bid competitively on price, and encourages them to give me the best quality product possible.

—Donald Trump, Time to Get Tough: Making America #1 Again, 2011

As a real estate developer, Donald Trump would routinely put contracts out to bid to get the highest possible quality at the lowest possible price. This is, of course, a common practice in business. You send out a request for proposal, contractors submit bids, then you choose whichever bid looks most attractive.

Alas, Trump’s next step was often to ignore contractor invoices, leaving these poor saps no way to recover their costs except by filing an expensive lawsuit. Roy Cohn taught Trump that rich-jerk bullying technique. In 2016, USA Today identified at least 60 such contractor lawsuits, including a few brought by the same law firms Trump had earlier hired to fend off stiffed painters, stiffed carpet companies, stiffed real estate brokers, et cetera. Trump’s attitude was that his contractors should work free of charge. “Do you know how much publicity these people get for having me as a client?” Trump would say, according to Maggie Haberman’s 2022 Trump biography, Confidence Man.

The president’s past abuse of contractors does not discredit his past preference for competitive bidding. It’s a sound, sensible way to get value for your money. If you’re a homeowner, you’ve probably done some version of it yourself before undertaking some pricey renovation like replacing a roof or furnace.

Competitive bidding is even more common in government. That’s because when the money to buy goods or services doesn’t come out of the buyer’s pocket, it creates what economists call moral hazard. Competitive bids help overcome moral hazard by making the contracting process more objective and transparent. By one estimate, 97 percent of government contracts are put out to open bid. On those rare occasions when exceptions are made, it’s usually because either speed is of the essence or some extremely rare expertise is required.

Regrettably, to about the same degree Trump favored competitive bidding as a real estate tycoon, he disfavors it as president of the United States. That’s partly because Trump lacks the necessary patience, but mostly it’s because he lacks the necessary honesty. The man never met a moral hazard he didn’t like. Donald Trump will be remembered as (among other things) America’s No-Bid President.

Look under any rock in Washington these days, and you’ll find a no-bid contract. The Interior Department awarded one $1.7 million no-bid contract to Green Water Solutions to clean up the water in the Reflecting Pool on the National Mall and a second $14.7 million no-bid contract to Atlantic Industrial Coatings to attach blue waterproofing to the Reflecting Pool’s concrete bottom. Customs and Border Protection awarded a $1.6 billion no-bid contract to Barnard Construction Company to build 112.5 miles of “secondary” border wall in New Mexico. Immigration and Customs Enforcement awarded a $4.2 million-per-month no-bid contract to Core Civic to detain immigrants at its shuttered prison in Leavenworth, Kansas, then later replaced that with a $60 million annual contract, according to the Kansas Reflector and the Lawrence Times. The Homeland Security Department awarded $220 million in no-bid contracts for a public relations campaign.

To build an East Wing ballroom, the White House awarded a $500 million no-bid contract to Clark Construction, which in turn awarded subcontractors 11 no-bid contracts for demolition, excavation, fencing, and other services, according to Sarah Blaskey and Jonathan O’Connell in The Washington Post. The National Park Service awarded Clark Construction a second no-bid 17.4 million contract to repair two ornamental fountains in Lafayette Park, according to David Fahrenthold, Luke Broadwater, and Andrea Fuller of The New York Times.

The Navy and the Treasury Department awarded five contracts worth $13 million to Event Strategies, a public relations firm, to organize celebrations of the Navy’s 250th anniversary and publicize the administration’s “Trump accounts” for children, according to Fahrenthold and Fuller.