nearly 100 days in, it s not entirely clear what president trump is learning. what is very clear is that everyone working around him is beginning to learn how to deal with him. according to politico, white house aides have figured out it s best not to present trump with too many competing options when if comes to matters of policy or strategy. instead, the way to win trump over, they say is to present him a single preferred course of action, then walk him through what the outcome could be and especially how it will play in the press. and it s not just white house aides. foreign leaders are also beginning to figure out how to deal with president trump. for example, when it comes to trump s bluster on nafta, one xican legislator put it this way. it seems like he s sitting at a poker table bluffing rather than making serious decisns. in front of a bluffer, you always have to maintain a firm and dignified position. when it came to trump s campaign promise to label china a currency manipu
hemispherically. north america from a creativity perspective, from an innovation perspective, this is the most competitive region in the world. right. and i think that donald trump is bumping up against reality here and good because this would have been terrible for the country and the american workers. the reason i want to talk to you about this is i remember actually barack obama and hillary clinton both promised to renegotiate nafta or said they were going to renegotiate nafta in 2008. you ve got the situation where if you poll americans on these trade deals, they re quite skeptical of them. there s also good macro economic data to show they have had an affect in rising inequality, which is not to say they haven t been a boon overall. but i wonder how much this sort of sense that we re seeing across the entire sort of west, right, of people feel like they re not in control and the globalists are how much does this add fuel to the fire when donald trump runs on i m going to g
was a base that was really trade skeptical that wasn t being played to or whether the way that partisan politics work is that people adopt their leader s views. what do you think about where the republican party, the republican base is on this right now? look, the republican party has become a grievance party in large measure. it s an aggrieved party. you listen to talk radio. you listen to some conservative cable networks. it s all grievance. someone is doing something to you. someone is doing something bad to you. and so that nafta is bad. trade deals are bad. we re getting screwed by these other countries fits in nicely to this grievance narrative. but, y know, now that you re the president of the united stat, there s this tractor pull of, you know, reality. you know, a gravitational force that says, hey, mr. president, you can dump nafta, but the consequences are going to be such. and i think still in the congress, though the members will be scared of republican voters on this is
spectacular yet of donald trump s young presidency. it was reported yesterday that the president was considering an executive order co-written by steve bannon to withdraw the u.s. from the north america free trade agreement known as nafta. exiting the trade deal with canada and mexico would have a huge impact on the economy. the reaction was swift with republican lawmakers urging the white house to hold off on its plans. last night after phone calls with the leaders of canada and mexico, the president changed his mind. today he explained what happened. i was going to terminate nafta as of two or three days from now. the president of mexico, who i have a very, very good relationship, called me and also the prime minister of canada, who i have a very good relationship, and i like both of these gentlemen very much. they called me, and they said rather than terminating nafta, could you please renegotiate. i like them very much. i respect their countries very much. the relationship is ver
discussion. what that discussion looks like could well determine the fate of the economy, here at home and around the world. let s talk more about this with cnn politics, steven colinson. were you able to tell this is political posturing, part of the deal-making process, or policies central to the u.s. and china relationship like one-china really up for negotiation? i think it s a bit of both, to be honest, victor. you know, it s clear that donald trump ran for office on a set of policies that include renegotiating the north america free trade agreement, which is the agreement with mexico and canada, and governs free trade in the western hemisphere, and took a more active response against rising china, and that clearly caught that set of beliefs, and a lot of people