President Donald Trump boosted the hopes of employees at Rexnord Corp.’s factory here in December when he castigated the company for “viciously firing” workers and planning to move their jobs to Mexico.At Axios, Alayna Treene writes:
Two months later, Rexnord is still planning to close the industrial-bearings factory, which employs about 350 people, despite Mr. Trump’s shaming and his earlier intervention to stop a nearby Carrier Corp. furnace factory from closing....
Executives at Peoria, Ill.-based Caterpillar are moving ahead with a restructuring that includes shifting jobs from a Joliet, Ill., factory to Monterrey, Mexico....
Charlotte, N.C.-based Nucor is moving forward with Japan’s JFE Steel to build a new plant in Mexico to make steel for car makers....
Manitowoc Foodservice Inc. went ahead with plans to wind down its soft-drink dispenser factory near Sellersburg, Ind., and lay off about 80 employees in the wake of Mr. Trump’s election, according to local officials.... Electronic component maker CTS Corp. still plans to phase out production at its Elkhart, Ind., plant by mid-2018 and shift production to China, Mexico and Taiwan, a spokesman said. The company has said about 230 employees would be affected as part of the restructuring.
Ford Motor Co., which Mr. Trump criticized during his presidential campaign, decided to scrap plans to build a new factory in Mexico and would create 700 new U.S. jobs. But the company said in January it would still shift production of its Focus small car from Michigan to an existing Mexican facility. General Motors Co. is in the process of moving more production to Mexico, despite criticism from Mr. Trump....
The economic benefits of investing abroad [have] continued to undermine Trump's plans, even if he uses the carrot of tax cuts and deregulations and the stick of potential tarriffs.Well, of course "the carrot of tax cuts and deregulations" isn't working -- Trump and the Republicans are dangling offers of tax and regulatory breaks to every business, so it's not as if there's any special incentive to play by Trump's offshoring rules. And remember that the Trump team floated the idea of tariffs last month, only to walk it back when congressional Republicans objected.
Trump's attention span won't permit him to focus on every business that's sending jobs to other countries, and he's not even going to be aware of most of the job exporting if it's not mentioned on his beloved TV shows. This story was in the Journal, but I guess it didn't get attention on Fox & Friends or Morning Joe, presumably because the world of politics is more interested in Neil Gorsuch's criticism of Trump and in Trump's battle with Nordstrom's over his daughter's clothing and shoe lines, a fight now taken up by Kellyanne Conway, who plugged the product lines in clear violation of government ethics rules.
Companies that want to export jobs just have to keep their heads down and wait for Trump's focus to be directed elsewhere, at which point they can do what they want. Also, Trump seems to be less and less interested in posturing as a champion of working people now that memories of his phony-populist campaign remarks have faded for him somewhat. He's got other Twitter wars to wage, and his team has other norms to smash, so this no longer seems to be an administration focus.
Working-class whites, you were seduced. Now you're being abandoned.
