By Krystal Ball

Opinion Contributor

Here we go again. The president has announced a supposedly huge deal. This time it's a deal with Mexico on NAFTA! The press was summoned to witness this "history" and was treated to an extremely awkward celebratory call where nothing much was demonstrated other than the white house's inability to successfully place phone calls.

Come on people. Get smart. We have been to this play before! The us trade representative's office, which is apparently capable of feeling slightly more shame than trump, has described this not as a deal but as a "a preliminary agreement in principle" that is not a deal. It's not an anything. Just another Trumpian spectacle Potemkin village of bluster and B.S. designed to grab a day's worth of positive headlines before fading into the dusty bin of flashy "deals" which amounted to absolutely nothing.

Remember the supposedly game-changing deal trump made to keep manufacturing jobs at carrier from moving to Mexico? There was a presidential trip to Indiana. There was a presser. There were many congratulatory headlines. And a year later, after the cameras left, the layoffs continued.

There was the Chuck and Nancy deal on DACA and then a televised negotiation on comprehensive immigration reform with a bipartisan group of lawmakers. Again the media oohed and ahhed at being let into these remarkable deliberations. Deliberations that led exactly where? Oh yeah. Nowhere. They led nowhere.

And of course, in the annals of phony deals we must mention the granddaddy of them all, the North Korea deal. There was a buildup. There was a "historic summit." there was, according to trump, a deal. There were tweets. "there is no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea!" "Americans can sleep well tonight." and now of course there are predictably zero signs of progress and lots of signs of regress.

Please do not fall for this again. A preliminary agreement in principle is not a deal. It is not worthy of a headline. If it was than perhaps trump's book could have been titled "the art of the preliminary agreement in principle" NAFTA has been a disaster for many Americans. NAFTA is unaltered under Trump.

Another promise broken and that is how it should be reported.

Krystal Ball is the co-host of "Rising," Hill.TV's morning news show.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the view of The Hill.