Well that didn't take very long.

The headline is about Trump's brinkmanship with NAFTA negotiations.



President Trump told the leaders of Mexico and Canada on Wednesday that he would not immediately move to terminate the North American Free Trade Agreement, only hours after an administration official said he was likely to sign an order that would begin the process of pulling the United States out of the deal.

In what the White House described as “pleasant and productive” evening phone calls with President Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada, Mr. Trump said he would quickly start the process of renegotiating Nafta — not abandon it, as he said he would do during the 2016 presidential campaign if he could not rework the deal to his satisfaction.

I can't say that I am surprised. I'm willing to predict that the renegotiated NAFTA will suck too.

How can I be so confident? Because of two other recent developments in the Trump Administration.

Here's one:



After a series of angry tweets from President Donald Trump directed toward Germany over trade, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told CNBC on Tuesday he is open to continuing talks on a proposed trade pact with the European Union.

"It's no mistake that, while we withdrew from TPP" — the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact with Pacific Rim nations — "we did not withdraw from TTIP," Ross said.

...

The reason TTIP stalled was mostly because of Europe, not Trump.

But the biggest reason I can be so confident was something that I couldn't even find in the American press.



The US has started trade talks with multiple countries in Asia to find an alternative to the failed Trans-Pacific Partnership, US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said.

This is a great, big FU to Trump voters, who are overwhelmingly against FTAs.

It's only a matter of time before working class Trump voters realize that he's betrayed them yet again.

It was Obama's arrogant and tone-deaf push for TPP in late 2016 that cost the Dems the rust belt.

Trump's betrayal will put the Rust Belt back into play, but only if the Dems embrace a more economically populist message, something the Dem establishment has so far refused to do.