As Trump claims to have saved Carrier jobs, details are hazy

Donald Trump said during his campaign that he would, if elected president, convince the air-conditioner manufacturer Carrier not to shutter a plant in IN and move over 2,000 jobs to Mexico.

Trump will travel to IN to announce a deal struck with Carrier to keep roughly 1,000 jobs IN the United States.

“Big day on Thursday for IN and the great workers of that wonderful state”, Trump wrote on Twitter late Tuesday night.

Carrier said late Tuesday that it would keep more than 1,000 jobs across two locations in Indiana.

They reportedly were among 1,400 jobs the manufacturer of heating and cooling equipment had planned to move to Mexico.

President-elect Donald Trump seems to already be making good on his campaign promise to work to keep manufacturing jobs in the United States.

Dan Coats is meeting with President-elect Donald Trump in NY today, although his spokesman declined to detail what will be discussed. He said “I am working hard, even on Thanksgiving, trying to get Carrier A.C. Company to stay in the U.S. (Indiana)”. He’ll roll back a specific regulation that affects the company in particular, or muster up some federal loan guarantees or worker training dollars, or maybe, as CNBC reported in the Carrier case, he might cajole a state governor into offering new corporate subsidies.

IN is still one of the biggest manufacturing states in the country. I also understand the benefits of a political p.r. campaign: Trump will hail himself as a hero for effectively bribing Carrier to only lay off some of its Indianapolis workforce.

Trump still has a decision pending for his choice of secretary of state, and Spicer said there are many “amazing, qualified individuals” in addition to 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney who met with the president-elect Tuesday night.

Another west-side Indianapolis manufacturer, Rexnord Corp., announced on November 14 that operations at its bearings-producing plant would move to Mexico. They note that Trump’s activism might encourage companies to threaten to move jobs overseas in hopes of receiving tax breaks or contracts with the government. Vice President-elect Mike Pence is still technically chairman of the IEDC’s board as IN governor.

You wouldn’t have thought it possible 10 months ago, but Trump did just that: Carrier is keeping the almost 1,000 factory jobs in IN, after all. But it ended the statement with a cautionary message about the future of manufacturing jobs in the US.

President-elect Donald Trump, center, eats dinner with Mitt Romney, right, and Trump Chief of Staff Reince Priebus at Jean-Georges restaurant, Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2016, in NY.

What neither Trump nor the company has announced officially, however, is just what the IN government has offered as an inducement to stay. Trump threatened to hit Carrier with a 35% tariff if it moved jobs to Mexico. The move will “help Ford and other people make a decision to build and buy in the United States”.

In addition, he said, Carrier’s image took a beating in recent months as Trump and other public officials assailed it for planning to send jobs to Mexico.