Hours after scrapping the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Trump White House explained that the president supports “free and fair trade.”

TPP couldn’t get through the last Congress, so it was already stalled indefinitely. But it is not just for that reason that scrapping it now contains a certain logic. It was a flawed deal, as any deal that requires the signatures of a dozen different countries is likely to be. So one can oppose a specific deal such as the TPP while at the same time supporting free trade in general.