More Than Intimidation Required to Make U.S. Great

President-elect Donald Trump garnered both acclamation and censure for his effort last week to stop Carrier Corporation from moving 1,000 manufacturing jobs to Mexico. Trump succeeded in part because the state of Indiana provided expensive tax incentives to the company and the president-elect himself threatened to impose a tariff on Carrier products produced outside the U.S. That’s a strategy which, if repeated every time a business threatened to take jobs overseas, would hardly amount to a win for American taxpayers and consumers. If Trump is really going to deliver on his pledge to preserve a significant number of American industrial jobs, he’s going to need more than intimidation and a “let’s make a deal” philosophy.