While we are obsessing about legitimacy…
From the Times
Mr. Trump’s decision to scrap the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or T.P.P., reversed a free-trade strategy adopted by presidents of both parties dating back to the Cold War, and aligned him more with the political left. When he told a meeting of union leaders at the White House on Monday that he had just terminated the pact, they broke into applause.
“We’re going to stop the ridiculous trade deals that have taken everybody out of our country and taken companies out of our country, and it’s going to be reversed,” Mr. Trump told them, saying that from now on, the United States would sign trade deals only with individual allies. “I think you’re going to have a lot of companies come back to our country.”
Tammy Baldwin and Bob Casey tweeted their support for the move.
This is, of course, Trump’s play to solidify support in the Midwest.
As a reminder, collapse in union support in key states was a central cause of his losses:
Clinton’s poor performance among union households appeared to especially damage her in crucial Midwestern states. Obama won Ohio in 2012, besting Romney in those households by 23 percentage points. Clinton actually lost Ohio’s union households to Trump by 9 points, according to exit polls. The state went to Trump.
Michigan would have been an easy victory any other year — Democrats had won the state since 1992 — but it’s currently still too close to call. Exit polls show Clinton holds only a 13 percent advantage among union households there. Obama beat Romney in union households by a whopping 33 percent in 2012. A similar scenario played out in Wisconsin this year, another state that went to Trump.
Simultaneously the idea of a “border adjustment tax” – essentially a tarrif – has gained serious ground.
Trump has also called a meeting to begin re-negotiating portions of NAFTA.
Something that once upon a time another candidate promised to do.
The naked politics here is pretty smart, and should not be taken likely.
