Trump talks tough on NAFTA as he marks 100 days in office
U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday marked his 100th day in office by claiming historic action on his agenda, renewing promises on health care and taxes and attacking the news media for misleading Americans.
In his morning radio address Trump said “in just 14 weeks, my administration has brought profound change to Washington,” and he issued an assurance: “My only allegiance is to you, our wonderful citizens.”
To supporters at an evening rally in Pennsylvania, he promoted American power and patriotism while emphasizing such priorities as American manufacturing, better trade deals, a border wall with Mexico and a still-to-be defined tax cut plan.
“We are not going to let other countries take advantage of us anymore,” he said in Harrisburg at the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex and Expo Center. “From now on it’s going to be America first.”
Trump’s 100th day events were set in a politically important state that he won with 48 per cent of the vote.
Trump visited the AMES Companies in Pennsylvania’s Cumberland County, a shovel manufacturer since 1774. With that backdrop he signed an executive order directing the Commerce Department and the U.S. trade representative to conduct a study of U.S. trade agreements. The goal is to determine whether America is being treated fairly by its trading partners and the 164-nation World Trade Organization.
He spoke to the issue at Saturday’s rally, when he raised spectre of the U.S. pulling out of the North American Free Trade Agreement, saying America has been on the “wrong side” of the trade pact for “many, many years.”
Trump told those at the rally that he’ll try to renegotiate the agreement with Canada and Mexico, but will terminate NAFTA if a “fair deal” for the U.S. can’t be reached.
The rally offered a familiar recapitulation of what he and aides have argued for days are administration successes, including the successful nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, his Cabinet choices and the approval of construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.
But the president began the rally on a sour note, pointing out that he was not attending that night’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner and issuing a scathing attack on the news media. To cheers, he accused the news media of “fake news” and said if their job was to be honest and tell the truth, then they deserved “a big, fat failing grade.”
At the 100-day mark, polls show that Trump’s supporters during the campaign remain largely in his corner.
Trump has tried to play down the importance of the marker, perhaps out of recognition that many of his campaign promises have gone unfulfilled.
“It’s a false standard, 100 days,” Trump said while signing an executive order on Friday, “but I have to tell you, I don’t think anybody has done what we’ve been able to do in 100 days, so we’re very happy.”