this surplus exists in no small part because of nafta, which is a bad deal for america and wants to overturn and which he says to canada, oh, fellas, we are going to give you an exemption for the moment on the steel tariffs we are hitting everybody else with. if you don t play ball with us on nafta, you are not exempt anymore. this has the world angry. it s a trade blackmail. he is doing the same thing with the european union and they are furious. they might be furious, i can t believe i m saying this, but could it work? a large portion of trump supporters might say, i don t care if you don t like us, america first. could this blackmail, if legal, work? no, it won t. that s the important part. it will raise prices in the united states and cause retaliation. so, the european union is planning on putting a tariff on
sta stangle, msnbc political analyst, and here with me, the former mexican ambassador to the united states. mr. ambassador, thank you. let s start with mexico. what the heck heck happened? as far as we know jared kushner was the point person on this and had to call pinieto, the president of mexico, and try to smooth it over afterwards. i think it s the attempt of both administration officials to try and ensure there s a strategic direction in this relationship. it s been derailed twice now by president trump. a year ago when president pinieto was going to come up to d.c. and again this time i think mexico continues sadly 10 show this relationship but it s a challenge. touches the daily lives of so many americans. on immigration, on nafta and other issues. on trade, water,
partnership, creating deals on their own. this is a place where free trade plays well, anti-trade doesn t play well. that said, maybe people at davos could do with having a shake-up about the fact tree trade doesn t always work well for manufacturing workers like in the united states. but it did move markets because wilber ross seemed to be implying a much tougher stance than the president on nafta but it is tough and complicated to lose nafta because of the shadow of the comments that wilber ross made. and then you have the whole sort of big picture and you mentioned the flags, that is the america first policy. how are we expected the president to frame that? reporter: well i asked that because how does a policy like that go over in a place like davos where everybody is about making more deals. as i was about to be on tv earlier, anthony scaramucci who
right. he was talking about renegotiating nafta. will you work with the president on that front? oh, i ve been very clear, i probably agree with the president on nafta more than most republicans do. i think it s really i mean we have lost so many jobs in the state of michigan that have gone to mexico where they re paying much lower wages, the environmental standards, it s almost impossible to compete. my job is to represent the working men and women of my district. trade and pension, i ve got a very large group of people that spent their lifetime working, put their contributions into their pensions and thought they would have a safe and secure retirement. president trump promised him he was going to do something about it and he hasn t delivered on trade or pensions. how is that going to play out next year? i think those two issues will matter in november. we ll see. also, of course, on the jobs front, nafta is part of it, as you know, automation, especially in the auto sector
massive 66% increase in cash christmas bonuses. that adds to up a big surge in gifts and parties and frank of happiness for american workers. even the president s lefty critics are coming around to the new reality. our neighbors to the north at the toronto star, is noting this about the president s negotiations on trade and in a compete titled on nafta, president trump makes sense in the economist blue collar wages are surging. they don t want to give trump credit. what about the never trumpers who only pay lip service to the will of the voters. we re starting to get an idea what they really think. here s what we weekly standard editor at large bill crystal tweeted. he said, the gop tax bill