300 Carrier Jobs Trump Touts for Indiana Were Never Moving to Mexico
Some of the jobs were never intended to go to Mexico.
— -- President-elect Donald Trump touted his job-saving prowess in Indianapolis Thursday at a manufacturing plant, but a portion of the 1,100 jobs he says will now remain stateside may never have been intended to go to Mexico in the first place.
Sources familiar with the deal announced late Wednesday confirmed to ABC News that 800 jobs at the Carrier facility in Indianapolis would remain, but that 600 would still be outsourced to Mexico. The company had announced in February that the factory, which employs 1,400 workers to produce furnaces and furnace parts, would shut down operations over the next three years.
Carrier intends to retain 300 white-collar positions -- such as research and headquarters operations -- in Indianapolis, but those jobs were never going to Mexico.
Trump and company officials on Thursday celebrated the preservation of 1,100 Carrier jobs in Indiana thanks to the agreement.
"Companies are not going to leave the United States anymore without consequences," Trump told workers at the Carrier plant. "These companies aren't going to be leaving anymore. They aren't going to be taking people's hearts out."
Trump added, "I will tell you that United Technologies and Carrier stepped it up and now they’re keeping -— actually the number’s over 1,100 people, which is so great"
Also at the Carrier plant event, United Technologies chairman Gregory Hayes, said, "Today we can talk about 1,100 jobs in Indiana going forward. So I'm pleased to announce that we have decided to keep Carrier [in] Indianapolis."
Other nearby factories are still shuttering and sending jobs to Mexico. The United Technologies Electronic Controls factory in Huntington, Indiana, which is owned by the same parent company as Carrier, is sending 700 jobs to Mexico. The Rexnord Corporation ball bearings factory in Indianapolis, one mile away from the Carrier factory, is moving 350 jobs south of the border.
Trump has put other companies considering a move out of the U.S. on notice. During the campaign trail, he threatened to levy a 35 percent tax against Carrier imports if the company moved production to Mexico. At Thursday's rally, Trump said he called the CEO of Carrier after he saw a piece on an evening news broadcast that reported the company was moving jobs out of the country.
"We won't need so much flexibility for other companies because we are going to have a situation where they're going to know, number one we'll treat them well, and number two there will be consequences," Trump said. "Meaning, they'll be taxed very heavily at the border if they want leave, to fire their people, leave, make product in different countries and then think they'll sell that product over the border."
Carrier said the agreement with Trump is due in part to the incoming administration's EFFORTS as well as state tax incentives, which Trump's transition team has refused to disclose the full details of. Carrier company officials said in a statement Thursday that the state of Indiana, where Vice President-elect Pence is governor, offered the company a $7 million package over multiple years, contingent on factors including employment, job retention and capital investment.
"This is a great day for Indiana and it’s a great day for working people all across the United States of America," Pence said at the rally before introducing Trump. He added that the Trump team was "grateful" that Carrier will now be able to "stay and grow right here in America."
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