INDIANAPOLIS — Donald Trump saluted workers, owners and himself Thursday at a Carrier plant in Indiana, declaring that 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.
While focusing on the hundreds of jobs he said he had saved from moving to Mexico, he also found time to talk about his election performance, former Indiana University basketball coach Bob Knight and the wall he has promised to build along the U.S.-Mexico border.
[TRUMP: Timeline of president-elect’s career + list of appointments so far]
Some questions remain about the extent of the victory at Carrier, which said this week that 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 that 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 policies by President Barack Obama's administration, and he pledged to revive U.S. manufacturing. Officials said this week that Carrier had agreed to keep some 800 union jobs at the plant, but Trump suggested Thursday that 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 that 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.
The company's decision is something of a reversal, since earlier offers from the state had failed to sway Carrier.
Read Friday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.