INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - Donald Trump saluted workers, owners and himself Thursday at a Carrier plant in Indiana, declaring a deal to keep a local plant open instead of moving operations to Mexico was only the first of many business victories to come in the U.S. with him as president.
Trump's stop at the heating and air conditioning giant's plant, his first major public appearance since the election more than two weeks ago, marked the opening of a victory tour to states that helped him win. He was appearing at a big rally in Cincinnati on Thursday night.
His speaking style, while calmer than on the campaign trail, was similar to the seemingly stream-of-conscious efforts of the past year. While focusing on the hundreds of jobs he said he had saved from moving to Mexico, he also found time to talk about his Hoosier state primary performance, former Indiana University basketball coach Bob Knight and the wall he has promised to build along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Some questions remain about the extent of the victory at Carrier, which announced this week it will keep an Indianapolis plant open. In February, the heating and air conditioning company said that it would shut the plant and send jobs to Mexico, and video of angry workers being informed about the decision soon went viral.
"We're going to build the wall," Trump said, repeating his vow to construct an impenetrable southern border. "Trust me: We're going to build that wall." In other recent remarks, he has suggested he might actually go for a fence along some portions of the border.
"The Rust Belt is so incredible but we're losing companies, it's unbelievable. Just one after the other," Trump said to workers at the Indianapolis plant. "Companies are not going to leave the United States anymore without consequences. It's not going to happen. It's simply not going to happen."
During the campaign, he had often pointed to the Indiana plant's moving plans and a major result of poor Obama administration policies, and he pledged to revive U.S. manufacturing. Officials said this week Carrier had agreed to keep some 800 union jobs at the plant but Trump suggested Thursday it could exceed 1,100.
A call to a Carrier spokesman to clarify was not immediately returned. Earlier Thursday, Seth Martin, a spokesman for Carrier, said Indiana offered the air conditioning and furnace manufacturer $7 million in tax incentives after negotiations with Trump's team to keep some jobs in the state. Chuck Jones, the head of the USW Local 1999 union that represents the workers, said the additional jobs in Trump's count were previously set to be saved.
The company's decision is something of a reversal, since earlier offers from the state had failed to sway Carrier.
Trump said he personally called Greg Hayes, the CEO of United Technologies, Carrier's parent, to seal the deal, jokingly asking Hayes, "If I lost would you have picked up the phone?"
The president-elect threatened during the campaign to impose sharp tariffs on any company that shifted its factories to Mexico. And his advisers have promoted lower corporate tax rates as a means of keeping jobs in the U.S.