Factory workers should be cheering. Donald Trump, actually living up to a campaign promise, has been badgering corporate America to keep manufacturing jobs at home. On Thursday, Trump announced that Carrier Corp. will maintain about 1,000 jobs in Indiana rather than shift them to Mexico. He has prodded Apple Inc. to build plants at home rather than outsource to China. And he has taken credit (dubiously) for rescuing a Ford Motor Co. factory in Kentucky.
Many of you are probably saying: Hey, why haven't we done this sort of thing all along? Finally, we've got a tough guy in the White House who can stop those fat cats from moving our jobs overseas!
The problem is that Trump's bullying will undermine the rule of law — and ultimately prove detrimental to the U.S. economy. We know this because he's far from the first government official to try such meddling. In Japan, bureaucrats were once famous for it. And the results there should serve as a warning.