Donald Trump abandons plan to withdraw from Nafta in U-turn

President Trump today abandoned plans to withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Just hours earlier, the White House had said he was considering issuing an executive order for the US to split from the other two nations in the deal, Mexico and Canada, and go it alone.

The U-turn, announced today, came despite Mr Trump’s repeated campaign attacks on the trade pact, which he described as a “disaster” and a bad deal for the middle classes.

As recently as last week he declared that Nafta— which was originally negotiated by Bill Clinton — was harmful to American workers and a “catastrophic trade deal for the United States”. Yesterday an administration official said a full withdrawal was on the table.

However, Mr Trump has now told the Mexican president, Enrique Peña Nieto, and Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau that America will “bring Nafta up to date through renegotiation”.

The announcement comes before Mr Trump’s 100th day in office on Saturday. The White House said: “President Trump agreed not to terminate Nafta at this time and the leaders agreed to proceed swiftly, according to their required internal procedures, to enable the renegotiation of the Nafta deal to the benefit of all three countries.”

Mr Trump said he believes “the end result will make all three countries stronger and better”.

Washington analysts saw the apparent change of course as a negotiating ploy intended to get a better deal from Mexico and Canada by taking them to the brink with threats of a withdrawal that would have had serious repercussions for trade between the three nations. Mr Trump has already taken the US out of the Trans Pacific Partnership, a trade deal put together under the Obama administration.

Although his decision to stay in NAFTA does not have the populist appeal of his campaign rants against the agreement, he can nevertheless say that he has fulfilled a 100-day pledge to renegotiate the pact with Mexico and Canada.

Fears of a pull-out had triggered Republican protests, with Senator Ben Sasse warning earlier yesterday that “scrapping NAFTA would be a disastrously bad idea.”

“It would hurt American families at the checkout, and it would cripple American producers in the field and the office,” he added. “Yes, there are places where our agreements could be modernised but here’s the bottom line: trade lowers prices for American consumers and it expands markets for American goods. Risking trade wars is reckless, not wise.”

The move came as the US sought to send a strong signal to North Korea by toughening up sanctions and stepping up diplomatic moves aimed at pressuring the rogue regime to end its nuclear and missile programmes.

“The president’s approach aims to pressure North Korea into dismantling its nuclear, ballistic missile, and proliferation programs by tightening economic sanctions and pursuing diplomatic measures with our allies and regional partners,” said a White House statement.

The US already has extensive sanctions in place on North Korea, including a blanket ban on trade and a blacklist of anyone dealing with North Korea. It was notimmediately clear what further sanctions Washington could impose.

The ultimatum seemed to carry little weight in Pyongyang. In a rare interview with CNN, a North Korean government official insisted his country’s nuclear tests would “never stop” as long as the US continued “acts of aggression”.

Meanwhile, Melania Trump’s spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham has denied a report in Vanity Fair magazine that the former model never wanted to be a president’s wife.

Insiders allegedly told the publication that Mrs Trump, 47, was uncomfortable in the spotlight and that her offices in the East Wing of the White House are like a “ghost town”.

Ms Grisham maintained in a statement that “Mrs Trump has always been supportive of all her husband’s endeavours.”

She said the First Lady “continues to work on building her agenda in a thoughtful way. She likes things to be done right, and doing things right takes time.”