There's a pattern emerging with Trump's deals to save US manufacturing jobs

Donald Trump said that he would, if elected President, convince air-conditioner manufacturer Carrier from shuttering a plant in Indiana and moving over 2,000 jobs to Mexico.

Trump was elected, and he has evidently made good on that pledge. Or at least some of the pledge.

Carrier will reportedly retain 800 jobs in Indiana, in two locations (besides the Carrier plant, a facility operated by parent United Technologies was also facing cuts), according to Business Insider's Kate Taylor.

This Trump deal, which he duly tweeted about, follows a negotiation that he reportedly had with Ford about what the president-elect erroneously thought was a plant relocation to Mexico. But it was really just an altered plan by Ford to keep manufacturing a Lincoln vehicle at a Louisville, KY plant where the automaker wanted to increase production of a similar SUV, badged as a Ford.

Ford wasn't considering the production move until 2019, when the current United Auto Workers contract is up. And there would have been no job losses as a result of the move, according to Ford.

These are wins of a sort for Trump, but a pattern is emerging.

The art of the deal

Some of the Carrier and UT jobs are being saved. A small amount of Lincoln production - around 2,000 vehicles per month - is staying put in Kentucky.

It should be fairly clear what's going on here. United Technologies said that it could save $65 million per year by moving, but it has $56 billion in annual revenue, according to the New York Times. Indiana will provide $700,000 in tax incentives, but adding the whole thing up is a rounding error, in terms of UT's overall business.

Trump wants to make a deal, because that what he does: he's a deal guy. His running mate is Mike Pence, the governor of Indiana. So UT keeps some workers in Indiana. Everybody gets to look good.

But of course, a whole bunch of jobs are still going to Mexico: 1,300 in total, Fortune reported. The outsourcing trend remains intact.

Ford didn't even have to worry about juggling jobs. All it had to do was not move production of a vehicle it wasn't planning to move for three years anyway. The Lincoln production could also be discontinued at the Louisville plant, replaced with production of the vehicle that Ford had wanted to build, the Ford Escape. It's basically the same car.

There isn't much that changes in terms of Ford's long-term thinking about sending unprofitable vehicle production to Mexico. Ford has, after all, been operating plants in Mexico since the 1960s.

We're talking about only two announcements here, so it may be a stretch to call it a pattern. But if this is the way things are going to go, Trump is going to be spending a decent amount of time and energy negotiating deals that tweet well, but that aren't really what you'd call needle-moving, in the grand scheme of things.

Maybe as President he'll up the stakes. Then again, companies that have planned to use NAFTA to their financial advantages will learn what works with Trump - give away something, but keep the master plan intact.