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Hillary Clinton is pouring some cold covfefe on President Donald Trump. 

Trump’s mysterious early-morning “covfefe” tweet was widely considered a typo, but White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer insisted later in the day that the word had a specific meaning. 

“The president and a small group of people know exactly what he meant,” he said. 

So what did Trump mean? 

“I thought it was a hidden message to the Russians,” Clinton said during an appearance at the Code Conference. 

Later in the day, Trump took to Twitter to blast Clinton as a “terrible candidate.”

She fired back:  

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WASHINGTON ― Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said that a commitment to “do no harm” would guide efforts to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement and that elements of the now-defunct Trans-Pacific Partnership would serve as a “starting point” in talks with Canada and Mexico.

The remarks on Wednesday at the Bipartisan Policy Center, which supports international trade agreements, struck a marked contrast with President Donald Trump’s nationalist bromides on trade. The comments will undoubtedly allay the fears of big-business interests that support NAFTA, some of which were well-represented in the room.

But Ross’ pronouncements are also liable to vindicate the fears of liberal trade skeptics already worried that the Trump administration’s version of revising NAFTA will amount to simply expanding NAFTA’s reach to new sectors of the economy. That runs counter to their wishes for measures more likely to save the jobs of less-educated workers, whether in manufacturing plants or call centers.

The Trump administration’s first objective will be to “do no harm, because there were some things that were achieved under NAFTA and under other trade agreements,” Ross told Jason Grumet, founder of the Bipartisan Policy Center, which receives foundation, corporate and individual funding.

Grumet subsequently told Ross that a “lot of people in this room and others are really comforted by” that assurance.

Indeed, two business leaders who support NAFTA ― Chip Bowling, chairman of the Corn Board of the National Corn Growers Association, and Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute, an oil industry trade group ― were in the room.

Grumet had interviewed them just before Ross’ arrival, allowing them to deliver a swan song to the much-maligned trade deal. Bowling hammered home just how important NAFTA was in opening up export markets for U.S. farmers, while Gerard waxed lyrical about the efficient supply chains NAFTA has made available for U.S. oil and gas producers and refiners.

Both men suggested that the changes they’d most favor would involve streamlining NAFTA to further integrate the United States’ economy with those of Canada and Mexico.

“It works very well for us right now. You can always strengthen an agreement,” Bowling said.

Here, too, Ross seemed to suggest that the administration is open to a strategy that might please some in the business community who benefit from NAFTA.

Ross said that bringing NAFTA up to speed with TPP, which would have created intellectual property protections and removed barriers to digital trade, would be the first order of business. Mexico and Canada had signed on to TPP, a 12-nation Pacific Rim trade agreement, before Trump shelved it in his first days in office, after campaigning against both NAFTA and TPP. But many business leaders wanted those two TPP provisions, so now they could get their way with a “repaired” NAFTA.

According to Ross, “there were a number of concessions to NAFTA countries made in connection with the TPP. And so we would view those as a starting point for discussion.

“It’s an old agreement. It didn’t address digital economy. It didn’t address much in the way of services, especially didn’t address much in the way of financial services. So there are some big holes in it.”

The comments provide fuel for the fears of progressive trade critics, such as Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, who worry that the administration will revise NAFTA only to make it a more TPP-like accord, which they say would have expanded opportunities for business without protecting workers. Absent meaningful improvements in Mexican labor and environmental standards and a restoration of preferential treatment for U.S. goods in federal government procurement, Wallach and others argue, there is little chance that a re-negotiation will benefit the American workers hardest hit by the 1994 trade pact.

Ross did note some of the priorities of groups like Public Citizen. He rattled off a list of NAFTA provisions in need of revision, including “intellectual property rights, customs procedures, sanitary and phytosanitary regulations, labor issues, environmental issues.” He also emphasized the importance of improving overall enforcement of trade treaties.

But Ross said that adding new provisions to NAFTA would be the “easiest” place to begin negotiations.

Wallach saw signs that the Trump administration might be using TPP as a model for NAFTA reform in a leaked March draft of a letter to Congress providing 90-day notice of NAFTA negotiation.

“They’d take the pieces of TPP that Mexico, the U.S. and Canada had agreed to and enact them bit by bit through the NAFTA renegotiation,” Wallach said in April.

The actual letter that U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer finally sent to Congress earlier this month was a fraction of the length of the March draft and, as a result, lacked many of its detailed descriptions. But it included some language about modernizing trade that resembled wording in the letter the Obama administration sent to Congress in 2009 when it notified lawmakers it would begin negotiations over TPP.

At other points in the conversation with Grumet, Ross defied the views of his hosts.

After Ross mentioned that a major goal of trade talks would be to reduce the United States’ trade deficit with its NAFTA partners, Grumet asked him whether trade deficits are necessarily negative.

The Bipartisan Policy Center, like many centrist, business-friendly Washington think tanks, produces research arguing that trade deficits can often correspond to high economic growth and need not be viewed as inherently problematic. BPC senior director Steve Bell sent a letter on May 10 to the Department of Commerce’s Trade Promotion Coordinating Committee making exactly that point.

Ross flatly rejected the idea.

“There’s no question that trade surpluses are more beneficial to a country than trade deficits,” he said.

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If you suffer from stress and anxiety, odds are someone in your life has mentioned meditation as a way to cope with it. Psychiatrists often recommend this therapy, and for good reason — research based on 19,000 meditation studies found mindful meditation can in fact ease psychological stress.

Despite that data, however, meditation isn’t for everyone. And it may not serve some people who experience the most severe bouts of stress.

I have chronic generalized anxiety, which means I’m always experiencing a level of tension or stress. For the most part I can manage it, but every now and then, it’ll hit hard without warning, and uproot my day completely.

In college, my therapist recommended I try meditation to curb my anxiety. At first, I was happy to oblige. I tried a variety of styles, from Zen meditation, which has you focus on breathing, to primordial sound mediation, which involves, well, making primordial sounds.

It didn’t work. I’d often find myself more anxious at the end of a 15-minute meditation session than I had been at the beginning. And I’m not alone: In general, it can be more difficult for people with chronic anxiety to meditate, because they have more stress-ridden thoughts than the average person, according to clinical psychologist Mitch Abblett. 

That said, there are plenty of ways to achieve the same level of relaxation without sitting cross-legged on the floor. They’re all rooted in a technique called “the distraction method.” It’s part of Dr. Albert Ellis’ Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy, which works under the assumption that a person’s way of thinking is intrinsically tied to their emotional functioning. 

The method consists of doing basic activities can help you take a step back from your anxiety. Psychologist Anjhula Mya Singh Bais explains the distractions can help people to “objectively view issues causing disturbances in a manner that is both pragmatic and helpful in a low intensity, low pressure and low stakes environment.”

Here are six suggestions for activities that may calm your brain without meditation, based on expert opinions and my personal experience: 

1. Arts and crafts — including but not limited to coloring, pottery and knitting

Working with your hands diverts energy into something productive, and often results in a cool or even beautiful creation.

“Being artistic calms the nervous system because when we’re focused on creative activities, our attention moves away from constant worrying,” New York therapist Kimberly Hershenson says. “This helps the nervous system regulate, allowing our brain to clear space to process difficult issues.”

2. All varieties of yoga

There are a multitude of benefits that come from practicing yoga, and a quieter mind is just one of them. It’s basically active meditation, which is great for the anxiety-prone, because it allows you to focus on your breathing and body without getting stuck in your head.

“Yoga helps build concentration and is a great way to improve overall focus,” explains Silvia Polivoy, clinical psychologist and co-founder of the Thevine Spiritual Center. “In addition, it enhances memory and improves brain power.”

If you’re new to yoga, I highly recommend starting with Lesley Fightmaster’s online videos.

3. Go for a walk

It may sound simple, but similar to yoga, walking outside (without your phone) allows you to refocus your anxious energy on a physical act and take in the world around you. Here’s a great way to start, courtesy of psychotherapist Melissa Divaris Thompson:

“The more you can get into nature the better. Walk with consciousness. Notice how your breath feels. Notice your feet walking on the surface with each step.”

4. Singing, humming and whistling

I often sing and whistle to bring myself back into the present. It automatically lightens my mood and regulates my breathing if I’m hyperventilating. The best part is you don’t have to be a good singer for it to work for you.

5. Free-writing before bed

This one’s especially great for people with anxiety that affects their sleep. David Ezell, the clinical director and CEO of Darien Wellness, recommends writing with a pen and paper to get away from distracting screens.

“The objective is to relieve the pressure of thoughts analogous to a water tank too full of H2O,” he writes in an email. “I tell my patients to see their arm as a pipe and the notebook the reservoir into which the water flows.”

6. Cooking

Cooking is filled with basic tasks that let you focus on all sorts of sights, smells, tastes and textures. Once you’re done, you can practice mindfulness while you eat.

Your personal distraction method may not be on this list. But if you keep experimenting with different strategies, you’ll be sure to find it.

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