Donald Trump kicked off a victory tour through the Midwest on Thursday
Donald Trump kicked off a victory tour through the Midwest on Thursday, swinging through Indiana to trumpet a deal to keep 1,000 manufacturing jobs from relocating to Mexico and addressing a campaign-style mass rally in Ohio.
The president-elect, who upended the US establishment and the world by defeating Hillary Clinton on November 8, made guaranteeing jobs for blue collar American workers a key plank of his presidential campaign.
Casting aside interviews for senior cabinet positions yet to be filled, the maverick tycoon flew out of New York bound for Indiana where he will tour an air conditioning plant that he repeatedly leaned on in public not to ship a planned 2,000 jobs to Mexico.
The 70-year-old billionaire will be accompanied by vice president-elect Mike Pence, who is winding down his official duties as governor of Indiana and also helped to broker the deal.
"Getting ready to leave for the Great State of Indiana and meet the hard working and wonderful people of Carrier A.C," Trump tweeted.
Carrier, a subsidiary of United Technologies, has announced that it will preserve more than 1,000 jobs and continue to manufacture gas furnaces in Indianapolis, but the precise details of the agreement are unclear.
"The incoming Trump-Pence administration has emphasized to us its commitment to support the business community and create an improved, more competitive US business climate," said Carrier.
"Incentives" offered by the state were "an important consideration," it said.
Critics are fearful that workers' rights may not be adequately protected, or that the deal may embolden other firms to threaten to relocate jobs in exchange for reported tax and regulatory breaks offered to Carrier.
Bernie Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont and prominent Trump critic on the left of American politics, savaged the deal in an op-ed published in The Washington Post on Thursday.