buy the same horse twice
English
Etymology
Perhaps alluding to the practice whereby a seller tricks a former owner into repurchasing a previously sold horse, often under disadvantageous terms.
Pronunciation
Proverb
- (US) (in a negotiation) To trade or make concessions for something that has already been agreed upon.
- We won't buy the same horse twice just to finalize this deal.
- 1975, Elie Abel, W. Averell Harriman, Special Envoy to Churchill and Stalin, 1941-1946[1], New York: Random House:
- “There was an expression we used at the embassy at the timethat trading with the Russians you had to buy the same horse twice,” Harriman recalled. […] He agreed that the whole negotiation we had just completed at Yalta would have to be developed again from the ground up. We had established nothing more than the machinery for renegotiation.
- 2013 March 12, Chris McGreal, “US dismissive of 'bellicose rhetoric' after North Korea nullifies armistice”, in Alan Rusbridger, editor, The Guardian[2], London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC:
- " […] The United States will not play the game of accepting empty promises or yielding to threats. As former secretary of defence Bob Gates has said, we won't buy the same horse twice. We have made clear our openness to authentic negotiations with North Korea. […] "
- 2019 September 23, David E. Sanger, Farnaz Fassihi, “A Year Later, Iran Finds Evaporating Sympathy at the U.N.”, in The New York Times[3], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC:
- “For the U.S. to be part of any negotiation with Iran, it has to show it is a trustworthy partner,’’ Mr. Zarif said. Picking up on an American term of art, he said he would not “buy the same horse twice.”