“I was all set to terminate. I looked forward to terminating. I was going to do it,” Trump told the reporter.

But he didn’t terminate so, in the next breath, he was telling the reporter, “I get a call from Mexico yesterday, ‘We hear you’re going to terminate NAFTA.’ I said that’s right. They said, ‘Is there any way we can do something without you — without termination?’ I said, ‘What do you want to do?’ He said, ‘Well, we’d like to negotiate.’ I said we’ll think about it. Then I get a call, and they call me, I get a call from Justin Trudeau and he said, ‘We’d like to see if we can work something out,’ and I said that’s fine.'”

It was all true.

But why was it in the newspapers?

After he had dinner with China’s President at Mar-a-Lago Trump told reporters, He’s a good man. He’s a very good man and I got to know him very well… I have a very good personal relationship with President Xi.

And after our military started building a missile defense shield in South Korea, Trump, talking with another reporter, said he wanted South Korea to pay for it.

So why is Donald Trump telling reporters stories about his dinners and phone calls and tiffs?

He loves publicity.

A reporter calls. Temptation whispers. And he can’t resist.