Trump and jobs

President Trump travelled to Michigan last week and promised to recreate the industrial America that existed when Rosie the Riveter was a celebrated symbol of its work force. He would do this, he said, by lifting burdensome regulations and ending unfair foreign competition. By the time he was through, he promised, the 900 jobs that General Motors announced on Wednesday that it would retain or add in Michigan would look like ‘‘peanuts’’.

On and on he went, talking doomsday nonsense and making outlandish promises to an American industry already enjoying record profits and adding jobs. Which raises the question: What is Mr Trump himself actually doing to meet his campaign pledge of 25 million jobs for working-class Americans?

In a word, peanuts. He tears up trade agreements that could lower the price of American products abroad, then backs a border tax that would raise the cost of components for manufacturers here. Instead of the $1 trillion infrastructure spending bill he promised, he sends Congress a budget proposal that spends a ton on defence while shortchanging job retraining programmess and public investment in essential needs.

History shows that well-tailored regulation drives innovation and creates jobs. But Mr Trump would ease these rules for an industry that has not only done well but that owes the American taxpayer big.