President-elect Donald Trump's negotiated deal with the Carrier heating, air-conditioning and refrigeration company to keep hundreds of manufacturing jobs in Indiana, altering the company's prior plan to move those jobs to Mexico, may have been a brilliant political move, but it does not bode well for free markets and the principle of equal treatment under the law.


Yet, about 600 jobs will still be relocated to Mexico, as will 700 additional jobs at the Huntington, Indiana, factory of Carrier's parent company, United Technologies, which was not part of the deal. In addition, that $16 million investment in the Indianapolis plant will be used "to automate to drive the cost down so that we can continue to be competitive," United Technologies CEO Greg Hayes explained during an interview on CNBC's "Mad Money with Jim Cramer" on Monday. "But what that ultimately means is there will be fewer jobs."


The deal serves as a terrible lesson that businesses will be subject to the capricious rule of the government, not equal treatment under the law. And while it may preserve hundreds of American jobs — at least, temporarily — it will also ensure that the prices of Carrier air-conditioners, furnaces and other products remain higher than they otherwise would be. This harms countless individual and small-business consumers, and ultimately makes Carrier less competitive, threatening the company's future growth and employment prospects. But that is a much more difficult photo op than the sympathetic worker who just found out he won't have to spend the holidays looking through "Help Wanted" ads.



This editorial originally was published in the Orange County Register. ​

Read or Share this story: