One of the promises Donald Trump made during his campaign was he would keep companies from moving jobs overseas or into Mexico. One company, Carrier, was going to move 2,000 jobs to Mexico. According to the New York Times, Carrier arranged a deal with President-Elect Donald Trump and Vice-President Elect Mike Pence to keep 1,000 of those jobs in the state of Indiana:

On Thursday, Mr. Trump and Mike Pence, Indiana’s governor and the vice president-elect, plan to appear at Carrier’s Indianapolis factory to announce a deal with the company to keep roughly 1,000 jobs in the state, according to officials with the transition team as well as Carrier.

Mr. Trump will be hard-pressed to alter the economic forces that have hammered the Rust Belt for decades, but forcing Carrier and its parent company, United Technologies, to reverse course is a powerful tactical strike that will hearten his followers even before he takes office.

“I’m ready for him to come,” said Robin Maynard, a 24-year veteran of Carrier who builds high-efficiency furnaces and earns almost $24 an hour as a team leader. “Now I can put my daughter through college without having to look for another job.”

In exchange for keeping the factory running in Indianapolis, Mr. Trump and Mr. Pence are expected to reiterate their campaign pledges to be friendlier to businesses by easing regulations and overhauling the corporate tax code, according to a spokeswoman for Mr. Trump.

It’s hard to argue against this as a positive. The NY Times, of course, tries to put their spin on it:

If Barack Obama had tried the same maneuver, he’d probably have drawn criticism for intervening in the free market.

That isn’t necessarily true. Reducing taxes and regulation allows the free market to flourish. President Obama’s ideas would center around tax breaks for hiring workers within the state or cash payments that do intervene in the open market. If it is found a particular tax break for Carrier is located in any budget bill, then yes, the criticism is valid.

The Democratic reaction is somewhat amusing:

“I think it’s pretty clear Carrier did this because the public relations cost to them was far greater than the short-term savings,” said Robert Reich, a prominent liberal Democrat who served as secretary of labor in the Clinton administration. “Even though it’s political theater, these are real people and the longer they are employed at Carrier, the better.”

If Reich talked to one the people keeping their job and told them it was just “political theater” they’d probably hit him so hard he’d shrink and be only three feet tall instead of four.