Last week, it was announced that Donald Trump had made good on his promise to stop the air-conditioner giant Carrier from moving jobs from Indiana to Mexico. Upon first glance, this seemed like good news.
After all, the president-elect had made the Carrier plant something of a symbol of the way the middle class had been forgotten about by Washington. But upon closer inspection, the deal didn't seem to hold water. Rather than having Carrier bend to his will by threatening them with higher taxes should they leave, as he had promised during the campaign, Trump instead offered the manufacturer massive tax breaks (around $7 million for the company) for keeping the jobs here.
And rather than saving all 2,200 jobs that were leaving, Trump announced that his deal actually only saved about half of them. Well, that was a lie. Today, it was reported that deal is actually even worse than we thought. One union worker talked to the local NBC affiliate:
Now, look, obviously this is still good news if you are one of the 730 families who don't have to go find a job. It's important not to forget that. But it's hard not to feel like this deal is a lot like all of Donald Trump's life. Designed to look impressive while actually being horribly underwhelming.