7 things Trump is doing that liberals probably actually like

Hillary Clinton and Donald TrumpSpencer Platt/Getty Images

There seems to be an infinite number of issues President Donald Trump and his liberal opposition vehemently disagree on.

But there are a handful of policies the new administration is championing that many liberals support, including large-scale infrastructure investment and paid family leave.

And recently, Trump has shown a willingness to deal with Democrats as Republicans frustrate him in Congress.

Here are seven things Trump has promised to do that Democrats support.

Scrapping the TPP

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President Donald Trump fulfilled his campaign promise to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which he's called a "rape of our country," during his first day in office. 

The TPP — championed by President Barack Obama as an expansion of the North American Free Trade Agreement — was derided by many liberals, including Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who argued that it would enrich American and foreign corporations at the expense of American workers, whose jobs would disappear and wages would decline.

Criticism of the TPP from both the political left and right forced Hillary Clinton to back away from her support for the deal during the presidential election. 



A $1 trillion infrastructure plan

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In another break from Republican orthodoxy, Trump campaigned on the promise to invest billions of federal dollars in national infrastructure.

The president reiterated this priority during his speech to a joint session of Congress in late February, calling for a $1 trillion investment in "a new program of national rebuilding."

"Crumbling infrastructure will be replaced with new roads, bridges, tunnels, airports and railways, gleaming across our very, very beautiful land," Trump said. 

Conservatives are deeply skeptical of the effort, but Democrats have long pushed for increased infrastructure spending. In January, Senate Democrats introduced a $1 trillion infrastructure building plan that they say will create 15 million jobs over a decade.



Guaranteed paid leave

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The US is the only industrialized country in the world that doesn't guarantee any kind of paid family leave on the federal level. 

Republicans, including Vice President Mike Pence, have long fought all kinds of Democratic paid leave proposals. In a break from his party, Trump proposed six weeks of guaranteed paid maternity leave for biological mothers on the campaign trail. His daughter Ivanka Trump, a self-proclaimed champion of women's empowerment, has been credited with helping craft the policy. 

During his address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night, Trump confirmed his commitment to paid leave, but seemingly tweaked it by using the phrase "new parents," rather than "mothers."

“My administration wants to work with members of both parties to make child care accessible and affordable,” Trump said, “to help ensure new parents that they have paid family leave.” 

An economic policy scholar at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute recently told The Washington Post that the administration is considering making the policy gender-neutral.

 




See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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