It’s the Economy

On his first full workday in office, President Trump kept one repeated campaign promise, formally pulling the plug on the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal. But his remarks out of a breakfast session with top CEOs made it plain that his larger economic agenda remains firmly pro-growth.

Axing the 12-nation TPP came as no surprise: It was one of his most frequent campaign promises and easy to deliver on, since his predecessor never even tried to get Congress to OK it.

And make no mistake about it: That promise was a big reason why Trump won, particularly in Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Yes, Hillary Clinton eventually came out against TPP, which she’d helped negotiate — but few believed she really meant it.

We favored the TPP deal and are no huge fans of Trump’s trade agenda. So we welcome the news out of the president’s meeting with his Manufacturing Advisory Council — a session that, happily, ran long.

There, Trump renewed his promises of both “massive” tax cuts for “the middle class and for companies,” from a 35 percent rate to 20 percent or less, and serious (but smart) deregulation — even talking of rolling back 75 percent of federal rules. Indeed, he noted that, in his experience, cutting “regulation wins” over trimming taxes when it comes to boosting growth.

Getting those messages out is vital. As Charles Gasparino noted in these pages last week, the investor enthusiasm that soared after Election Day has been calming the last few weeks, as other issues pushed the Trump pro-growth agenda out of the news.

Now the Senate needs to stop stalling the president’s economic nominees, so they can get to work delivering the change the US economy needs.

We also look forward to plans for a US-UK trade deal coming out of the president’s sitdown this week with Britain’s Theresa May.

Trump is hardly a typical Republican — as another successful Monday meeting, with a dozen union leaders, indicates. But what matters is that he delivers the results he promised.