Keeping jobs in the US by force

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We already covered the hypocrisy of this over here..

Despite the cheers Mr. Trump received as he walked around the factory floor, where the lines continued to run and he had to shout at times to be heard, another 1,000 workers for the company in Indiana will be losing their jobs. This includes 700 at a United Technologies factory in nearby Huntington, as well as several hundred here. The 800 or so jobs that are being preserved are mostly on the lines that build medium- and high-efficiency gas furnaces. Not long after Mr. Trump and Mr. Pence departed for the airport and to another rally in Ohio to celebrate his victory, workers coming in for the night shift received a letter titled “Company Update on Indianapolis Operations.” Photo “It sets a great tone,” Mr. Trump said in an interview as he toured the Carrier factory after the announcement that hundreds of jobs would remain there. “While this announcement is good news for many, we recognize it is not good news for everyone,” the letter stated. “We are moving forward with previously announced plans to relocate the fan coil manufacturing lines, with the expected completion by the end of 2017.”

Trump Cheered for Carrier Deal Even as Other Jobs Are Trimmed - The New York Times

It should be fairly clear what's going on here. United Technologies said it could save $65 million a year by moving, but it has $56 billion in annual revenue, according to The New York Times. Indiana will provide $700,000 in tax incentives, but adding the whole thing up is a rounding error in terms of United Technologies' overall business. Trump wants to make a deal because that's what he does — he's a deals guy. His incoming vice president is Mike Pence, the governor of Indiana. United Technologies keeps some workers in Indiana. Everybody gets to look good. But, of course, a whole bunch of jobs are still going to Mexico: 1,300, Fortune reported. The outsourcing trend remains intact.

Ford didn't even have to worry about juggling jobs. All it had to do was not move production of a vehicle it wasn't planning to move for three years anyway. The Lincoln production could also be discontinued at the Louisville plant, replaced with production of the vehicle that Ford had wanted to build, the Ford Escape. It's basically the same car. There isn't much that changes in terms of Ford's long-term thinking about sending unprofitable vehicle production to Mexico. Ford has, after all, been operating plants in Mexico since the 1960s. We're talking about only two announcements here, so it may be a stretch to call it a pattern. But if this is the way things are going to go, Trump will be spending a decent amount of time and energy negotiating deals that tweet well but that aren't really what you'd call needle-moving in the grand scheme of things.

Trump manufacturing job deals misleading - Business Insider

One of Donald Trump’s most consistent campaign promises has been to prevent U.S. businesses from moving good jobs to Mexico -- whether through taxes, jawboning, or more drastic means, such as an outright prohibition. Economists might regard this as a misguided form of protectionism, but in fact, it’s worse than that: If instituted, it could prove a major step toward imposing capital controls on the American economy and politicizing many business decisions. Let’s consider how such a policy would be enforced in practice... The biggest irony of this whole Trump initiative is that it likely would lead to higher U.S. trade deficits.

Economists stress the offsetting nature of trade flows and capital flows. As the accounting identities are constructed, a higher trade deficit corresponds to higher capital inflows, and a lower trade deficit corresponds to higher capital outflows. (To see the nature of these balanced transactions, imagine China selling goods and accumulating Treasury bills in return, a form of investment in this country.) So a Trumpian plan to limit capital outflows, through whatever means, is also -- if only indirectly and without such intent -- a plan to boost the trade deficit. How’s that for making America great again? The laws of economics and politics have not yet been repealed.

Trump's Disastrous Pledge to Keep Jobs in the U.S. - Bloomberg View