WASHINGTON: With his carrot-and-stick manhandling of the US business community, President-elect Donald Trump has major companies falling over themselves to offer goodwill gestures and promises to create US jobs.
This aggressive strategy — in which Trump has publicly threatened major corporations over the use of foreign labor — has sent ripples through a country that reveres free enterprise and is not accustomed to seeing the nation’s chief executive go mano a mano with individual businesses.
But the tactic is creating the appearance of success.
Automaker General Motors and the retail giant Wal-Mart Stores on Tuesday joined the growing list of companies that have promised to ramp investment and employment in the United States since Trump began his post-election campaign against off-shoring US jobs.
Trump has been quick to take credit for any job creation and new investments.
