Trump's been spending a lot of time lately going around to US businesses, trying to cut deals with them to prevent them from setting up business in other countries like Mexico. I keep getting tweets from him on my Twitter feed about all of this, and it clearly seems to be something he's passionate about. I thought it would be worth starting a thread to keep track of this activity, and how it might impact public attitudes about trade.
Ford
11/17/16 Trump touted a Ford factory staying in the US as an election win — but it was never leaving
CarrierPresident-elect Donald Trump on Thursday night said he persuaded Ford executives to keep a production plant from moving to Mexico.
"Just got a call from my friend Bill Ford, Chairman of Ford, who advised me that he will be keeping the Lincoln plant in Kentucky — no Mexico," Trump said on Twitter.
"I worked hard with Bill Ford to keep the Lincoln plant in Kentucky. I owed it to the great State of Kentucky for their confidence in me!"
But there's one problem: Ford never planned to move its Louisville, Kentucky, plant to Mexico.
Ford originally had plans to shift production of its Lincoln MKC vehicle from its Louisville plant to Mexico, according to the Courier-Journal, but the shift was not expected to affect employment levels at the plant.
Ford has now opted to keep building the line at the Louisville facility.
The company never announced plans to shut down the plant and move it across the border as Trump asserted.
11/30/16 Trump just executed an unprecedented deal for a president in business — but a tough road is ahead
12/4/16Carrier tweeted on Tuesday that the manufacturer had reached a deal with Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence that would "keep close to 1,000 jobs" in Indianapolis.
The company had planned to outsource roughly 2,100 jobs to Mexico with the closure of a plant in in Indianapolis, which employs 1,400 people, and another in Huntington, Indiana, which employs 700. The fate of the Huntington plant is still unclear.
President-elect Donald Trump warns companies they will be making 'expensive mistake' if they move abroad in cryptic tweets
Trump's actions have drawn criticism from both political parties.President-elect Donald Trump warned companies in a series of tweets Sunday morning they will be making an “expensive mistake” —including a 35% tax —if they move business abroad.
Trump launched his volley by promising that the U.S. would “substantially reduce taxes and regulations on businesses” but warned “any business that leaves our country for another country,” he wrote in an early-morning tweet.
12/1/16 - Republican Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska - said trying to keep jobs from going overseas is a temporary fix, given the irreversible trend toward automation in the industrial sector which will continue to shrink the number of manufacturing jobs
http://www.businessinsider.com/ben-sass ... rd-2016-12
12/1/16 - Nathan Jensen, Professor at the University of Texas, Austin - Carrier confirmed that it is getting economic incentives from Indiana; reportedly those incentives will amount to $7 million over a decade; all the research shows that two-thirds and three-quarters of the incentives don’t actually have an impact on companies’ decisions to expand or keep jobs in a given state
https://thinkprogress.org/carrier-trump ... .qgr8dks07
12/2/16 - Sarah Palin - raises specter of "crony capitalism" - “When government steps in arbitrarily with individual subsidies, favoring one business over others, it sets inconsistent, unfair, illogical precedent. Meanwhile, the invisible hand that best orchestrates a free people’s free enterprise system gets amputated”
http://www.kansascity.com/news/nation-w ... rylink=cpy
12/4/16 - Tim Worstall, Forbes -
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall ... 17d730ec03The real underlying point here is that we don't in fact want an economic manager. Not in the bureaucracy, not as a politician and most certainly not as the President. We do want, and need, an economic rule setter, some system at least which outlines the general rules for the economy. We can also go on and have the most lovely fights about what exactly those rules should be. But they must be general rules, not ones subject to revision because the President says so, or because one specific issue grabs the public limelight.
So, is Trump on the right track? Should he be using his position and status as President to micromanage the decisions of individual businesses? Will what he's doing have a positive impact on the attitudes of business owners regarding the importance of US jobs?
