Trump counters Senate impeachment trial with Midwest visit

WARREN, Mich. (AP) — President Donald Trump is serving up counterprogramming to his impeachment trial on Thursday by promoting his new trade deal and rallying supporters in two Midwestern states that he views as crucial to his reelection.

Trump addressed workers at a manufacturing plant in Michigan to celebrate the new trade agreement with Canada and Mexico that he signed into law a day earlier. From there, he was headed to Iowa for a campaign rally in Des Moines ahead of Monday’s first-in-the-nation caucuses.

But during his visit to Dana Industries in Warren, Michigan, one of the largest U.S.-based suppliers to vehicle manufacturers, Trump couldn't hide his anger over the impeachment trial. He complained that the Senate trial was overshadowing the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement.

“The USMCA is the fairest, most balanced trade agreement we've ever signed into law,” Trump said. “What do they do? They impeach you.”

Trump began to grumble that he wasn't getting enough credit soon after landing in Michigan. He took to Twitter to tout the USMCA as the “BIGGEST TRADE DEAL EVER MADE" but railed that the media “barely mentioned it.”

The White House says that the trade deal — the successor to the North American Free Trade Agreement — will lead to 76,000 new jobs for the U.S. auto industry alone, and he boasted of big improvements in manufacturing under his watch.

"For decades, politicians, they campaigned all across Michigan promising to do something about NAFTA — and I call it the NAFTA disaster — only to get elected and do absolutely nothing," Trump said of the Democrats. He added: “I just want to say I kept my promise, and not only my promise in loving the people of Michigan and all over the country, but my promise of taking care of it so that...