Trump touts Japanese deal as jobs-maker
Contract on Air Force One too costly, cancel it, he says
FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — President-elect Donald Trump turned businessman-in-chief, criticizing Pentagon plans for a new Air Force One and announcing a deal with a Japanese telecommunications company to increase jobs in the U.S.
He was in North Carolina on Tuesday, the second stop in his “thank you” tour to salute his supporters.
“We will defend American jobs. We have to look at it almost like a war,” Trump thundered, vowing to keep companies from moving overseas. “We want the next generation of innovation and production to happen right here in America.”
Trump was far less bombastic than during the tour’s kickoff in Ohio last week, striking more of the healing notes traditionally delivered by a president-to-be in the weeks after a bruising elec-
tion.
“We will heal our divisions and unify our country. When Americans are unified, there is nothing we cannot do — nothing!” he told the crowd in Fayetteville. “I’m asking you to dream big again as Americans. I’m asking you to believe in yourselves.”
The Republican businessman largely stuck to the script Tuesday — and even stopped the crowd when it started to boo the media. He also repeated his vow to fortify the nation’s military and invited retired Marine Gen. James Mattis onstage, officially naming Mattis his choice to be defense secretary after hinting at it last week.
Mattis will require a congressional waiver to accept the post, since he has not been out of uniform for the required seven years.
Early Tuesday, the president-elect took aim at one of the symbols of presidential power, saying on Twitter that the amount the Pentagon plans to spend on a new Air Force One is far too much and that the contract with Boeing should be killed.
“Cancel the order!” he tweeted.
Speaking to reporters later in the lobby of New York’s Trump Tower, he said the effort to build the plane “is totally out of control. It’s going to be over $4 billion for the Air Force One program, and I think that’s ridiculous. I think Boeing is doing a little bit of a number. We want Boeing to make a lot of money, but not that much money.”
Later in the day, Trump spokesman Jason Miller announced offhandedly that, months before, Trump had sold his entire stock portfolio.
The sale of Trump’s shares in big banks, oil conglomerates and other companies with business before the government would have netted Trump millions of dollars during his costly presidential campaign.
But beyond Miller’s comments Tuesday, Trump representatives have not provided records of stock transactions or other details since a financial-disclosure filing released in May.
Over the past five months, Trump campaign officials gave no indication of the stock sale. Trump has also refused to release his tax returns, which would provide more detailed information about his financial holdings.
As president, Trump will be subject to the Stock Act, a 2012 law that requires elected officials, including the president, to publicly disclose any stock transactions worth at least $1,000 within 45 days.
OUTSOURCING CONDEMNATION
In the afternoon, Trump appeared in Trump Tower with Masayoshi Son, the CEO of SoftBank, a Japanese telecommunications company that counts Sprint among its holdings. Trump pointed proudly to Son’s commitment to invest $50 billion in the United States, which Trump said could create 50,000 jobs.
Trump — who also tweeted about the deal — shook Son’s hand and posed for photos with him. Details of the deal were scarce, and it was unclear whether the money was part of a fund of up to $100 billion in global technology investments that SoftBank and the government of Saudi Arabia announced in October.
SoftBank has invested in the United States in the past, including paying $22 billion in 2013 for an 80 percent share of Sprint. The firm also led a $1 billion investment round last year in San Francisco-based online lender Social Finance.
Trump’s announcements followed one last week that he had saved 1,100 jobs in Indiana through a deal with air-conditioning company Carrier. The agreement, which includes $7 million in state incentives for the company, will keep 800 workers in the state, while 600 jobs still will go to Mexico.
Boeing, by contrast, would build Air Force One in the United States, and canceling the program could cost U.S. jobs.
Meanwhile, six Democratic senators from Rust Belt states that supported Trump called Tuesday for a swift congressional crackdown on U.S. companies that send manufacturing jobs abroad, claiming common cause with Trump’s crusade against outsourcing.
Trump on Sunday tweeted that “any business that leaves our country for another country, fires its employees, builds a new factory or plant in the other country, and then thinks it will sell its product back into the U.S. without retribution or consequence, is WRONG!” He threatened to impose a 35 percent tariff on goods those companies seek to import.
The Democratic senators from Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin stopped short of calling for a protectionist tariff regime. But in a letter to congressional leaders Tuesday, they applauded “the recent attention President-elect Trump has brought to the issue of outsourcing and its impact on middle-class families” and called for legislation that would penalize companies that send jobs abroad.
Those penalties, they say, should include taking outsourcing into account when awarding federal contracts, keeping potential outsourcers from receiving tax breaks and other federal incentives, and “clawing back” any incentives if companies later ship jobs out of the country.
“The loss of manufacturing jobs in our states has contributed to the decades-long trend of the declining middle class,” the letter reads. “We believe these principles — which we intend to introduce as legislation — are critical to our shared commitment to encourage companies to invest in the United States and in American workers.”
The lead Democratic Party signer of the letter is Sen. Joe Donnelly of Indiana Also signing the letter are Sens. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, and Gary Peters and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan.
AIR FORCE ONE
The Air Force hasn’t released a total dollar amount for its Air Force One program.
In a statement after Trump’s Twitter post, Boeing said it had a $170 million contract to study the equipment that a redesigned Air Force One might need.
“We look forward to working with the U.S. Air Force on subsequent phases of the program allowing us to deliver the best plane for the president at the best value for the American taxpayer,” the statement said.
The program includes two aircraft and is still in the development stages. So far, the Air Force has budgeted $2.7 billion for the program. But that’s for research, development and testing — not manufacturing. And the Air Force expects “this number to change as the program matures with the completion of risk reduction activities,” the Air Force said in a statement.
The planes would not be ready to fly until 2024, so Trump’s $4 billion estimate may ultimately be about correct. However, since nothing but the basic study contract has been awarded yet, his administration could cut back or reshape the Air Force proposal in any way it or Congress wanted.
That price tag was justified because of the enormous capabilities of the planes, Todd Harrison, a defense analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies said. The plane, which flies under the call sign “Air Force One” when the president is on board, is a “flying command post,” Harrison said. “In the event of a nuclear attack, this is where the military will keep the president safe.”
Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace analyst with the Teal Group, said the “capabilities of this plane were there for everyone to see on 9/11” when Bush was whisked aboard Air Force One and responded to the crisis from there.
When the Air Force selected Boeing, it was the only U.S. manufacturer that could build such an aircraft. The other would be European-based Airbus.
“We don’t know what it will ultimately cost, but if President-elect Trump is suggesting we give this work to Airbus, that’s not good for American jobs,” said Sen. Richard Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois, where Boeing is based.
This isn’t the first time Trump has highlighted the costs of Air Force One. In July, he objected to the use of the plane for campaign events. “Taxpayers are paying a fortune for the use of Air Force One on the campaign trail by President Obama and Crooked Hillary,” he tweeted. “A total disgrace!”
He brought it up again at a rally in North Carolina in July. “Now Air Force One is a very old Boeing 747,” Trump said. “It sucks up a lot of gas. A lot of fuel. Boy, the fuel bill. You turn on those engines, I can tell you, it’s a lot of money.”
An Air Force official, not authorized to speak publicly about the Air Force One program, said the current presidential plane will be 30 years old next year, and the new ones aren’t scheduled to go online until the mid 2020s. By then the technology aboard the current plane will be dated, and it will become increasingly hard to maintain. Any delays to replace it could cause significant problems, the official said.
Trump now uses his own plane, a Boeing 757, which he has outfitted with white leather and gold, a large flat-screen television and a bedroom. But as president it is expected that he would travel aboard the Air Force jet, which is equipped with special safety, defensive and communications equipment. Air Force One also has seating for reporters; Trump generally does not allow reporters on his own plane.
Later this week, Trump will use that plane to travel to rallies in Iowa and Michigan. And on Saturday, Trump will attend the 117th annual Army-Navy football game. The game between the two military academies often draws the commander in chief. Barack Obama and George W. Bush have attended that game in recent years.
Boeing was selected as the manufacturer of Air Force One in January 2015, but it wasn’t much of a competition. Boeing’s 747-8 was the only plane made in the United States that could meet the requirements for the presidential aircraft while also being “consistent with the national public interest,” Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James said in a statement at the time.
She said the Pentagon “will insist upon program affordability through cost-conscious procurement practices.”
Information for this article was contributed by Christian Davenport, Jenna Johnson, Drew Harwell, Rosalind S. Helderman, Tom Hamburger, Matea Gold and Mike DeBonis of The Washington Post; by Jonathan Lemire, Joseph Pisani, Stephen Braun and Richard Lardner of The Associated Press; and by Michael D. Shear, Nelson Schwartz and Nick Corasaniti of The New York Times.