I guess you could have predicted this switcheroo.

Former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Newt Gingrich has performed a 180-degree flip on free trade. He now agrees with the Republican presumptive presidential nominee Donald J. Trump.

Free trade is a bad thing, Trump says. It steals jobs from American workers and ships them out to places like China and Mexico, he says.

Gingrich, though, was one of the architects of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which opened the door wide to free trade among the United States, Canada and Mexico.

Then the party’s presumed nominee came calling with a possible vice-presidential selection in mind.

Now it’s the former speaker who says he agrees with Trump on trade.

This kind of switch isn’t new, of course. Politicians do it all the time.

My favorite switch involved one of my favorite Republicans, a man I admire very much. George H.W. Bush once was considered a tried-and-true pro-choice Republican on abortion. Then the party’s nominee tapped him on the shoulder in 1980 and said, in effect, “If you want to run on our ticket, you have to become a pro-life guy on abortion.”

Bush did and he joined Ronald Reagan on the GOP’s winning 1980 ticket.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/newt-gingrich-trump-trade-vice-president-225035

Trump has accused U.S. political and business leaders of “stupidity” in allowing free trade to pilfer U.S. jobs. Does that include Gingrich?

I guess not.

It’s interesting nevertheless because Gingrich always has struck me as a politician dedicated to core principles and to partisan orthodoxy. Free trade is part of the Republican mantra, while Trump’s view of GOP trade policy has angered many within the party’s establishment mainstream.

Go figure.

Let’s be sure to check in with Gingrich if Trump picks someone else to run with him.