Exactly so. Which is a point already made in this discussion as relates to NAI.

Follow the logic...

1. Trump may be any number of things, but he is not an idiot. Just the opposite, in fact.

2. Every single person who has ever discounted Trump has lost. Personally, I'm convinced his "act" is just that, designed to cause people to consistently under-estimate him. For example, he is an absolute master at trolling emotional liberal snowflakes.

3. Hold the above 2 thoughts for a moment.

4. Obama made many campaign promises, chief among them "national unity" and "transparency in gov't", which he did not keep. Voters have utterly wrecked and ruined his party, in large part because of these failures. His willingness to sacrifice American workers for his ideology simply sealed the deal.

5. Trump's #1 campaign promise is "fair deal for the American worker(s)", ie. the middle class

6. See point #1

7. Trump knows he needs his core supporters, and what will happen to him even faster than it did to Obama if he fails to keep his main campaign promises

8. The incoming SoT, Elaine Chao, works for Trump, not the other way around.

9. See: Carrier plant jobs saved from going to Me-hi-coe

In other words, in order to believe...at this moment...that Chao will be bad for US airline labor re: NAI issues (ie. flag -of-convenience), one has to disregard the clear and undeniable logic above. Which is to say, that Trump is stupid enough to repeat the Obama administration's mistakes re: campaign promises, that he will allow Chao to undermine his core political support, and that he utterly fails to see the political risks here.

That said, given that his detractors completely mocked his ability to attain the WH and never took him seriously to begin with, it is completely foolish to think they know what they are talking about now. Credibility = 0