It is November 13, 2016 and in about 2 months we will have a new President. Plenty of folks in the Rust Belt voted for Trump this election to the shock and dismay of the Democrats and their media friends. One of his challenges is detailed here:

Carrier’s decision to move the factory to Monterrey, Mexico, will eliminate 1,400 jobs by 2019. Mr. Trump quickly made the factory Exhibit A in his argument against the trade policies of Republicans and Democrats alike.

1400 Carrier jobs will be eliminated over the next three years (with a severance package that will be discussed later). And Mr. Trump’s answer:

He cited Carrier again and again on the campaign trail, threatening to phone executives at the company and its parent, United Technologies, and to hit them with 35 percent tariffs on any furnaces and air-conditioners they imported from Mexico. To the cheers of his supporters, he predicted at rallies that Carrier would call him up as president and say, “Sir, we’ve decided to stay in the United States.”

This response made people at Carrier and Bissell and Steelcase and GM and Chrysler and other manufacturing plants very very happy. The Rust Belt went for Trump because the folks in factories felt like someone heard them and wanted to help. Now the implementation might be anything but seamless. Mike Rowe has a rather useful Facebook post discussing the Rust Belt here:

Dirty Jobs didn’t resonate because the host was incredibly charming. It wasn’t a hit because it was gross, or irreverent, or funny, or silly, or smart, or terribly clever. Dirty Jobs succeeded because it was authentic. It spoke directly and candidly to a big chunk of the country that non-fiction networks had been completely ignoring. In a very simple way, Dirty Jobs said “Hey – we can see you,” to millions of regular people who had started to feel invisible. Ultimately, that’s why Dirty Jobs ran for eight seasons. And today, that’s also why Donald Trump is the President of the United States.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRpM_U36gew

 

Unfortunately, the Carrier plant will likely not stay in the US and if it does, the plant may be relocated to a non Union state. Why do I say this? Here are three reasons I see:

Hint: Mr. Trump is not Santa Claus

1. NAFTA addresses punitive tariffs against Canada and Mexico quite thoroughly. Mr. Trump and his economic and legal advisors may want to read the requirements (noting NAFTA allows Carrier to do what it did legally. It also allows GM to have Canadian and Mexican plants FTR). If the plant is a tax free zone then the city and state may have grounds to go after local/state taxes.
2. There are other reasons that manufacturing plants like Carrier are moving their plants to Mexico: Taxes and Labor Costs are too damn high. In order to compete for business going forward, they have to reduce costs of manufacturing.  And the unions did negotiate great benefit and wage packages but the cost of these packages are now coming to pass.  Unfortunately this means that a union state has a great disadvantage when a company looks at expanding or closing a facility.  The term short term gain and long term pain applies all too well.
3. Note that the words Trump used were “stay in the United States” not stay in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Hopefully Donald Trump and his transition team will continue to see and hear the Rust Belt workers and their families. The people living in the Rust Belt are frankly tired of being given infinite numbers of forgotten campaign promises. The Democrats did this for decades. Hopefully the GOP can do better. Or whatever conservative party comes along.