President-elect Donald Trump promised the American people that he would bring back jobs from overseas to the U.S. as a cornerstone of his campaign. As a result, he is taking credit for the 8,000 incoming jobs courtesy of a Japanese billionaire who owns the telecom company Sprint and OneWeb.
As The Washington Post reports, Japanese tech and financial mogul Masayoshi Son promised to bring over 50,000 jobs to the U.S. earlier this month. Trump was quick to jump on this opportunity to show his voters and doubters that he is a man of his word. It would seem that some of those promised jobs are actually becoming a reality.
On that note, 2016 saw 2.2 million employment additions, showing a robust U.S. economy that Trump had often refused to acknowledge. As such, 8,000 jobs or indeed, 50,000 jobs can’t be expected to make any kind of significant impact. Then again, those jobs do come with a $50 billion investment promised to the U.S. by Son, so it’s not negligible either.
Much of the funding acquired to push for adding jobs for American workers came from the Japanese financial institution SoftBank, which is also owned by Son. SoftBank acquired Sprint back in 2013 but has failed to make any kind of headway into the telecom market.
In fact, even though Son is promising to bring 8,000 jobs to the U.S., Sprint had already shed 9,000 workers under his ownership. This is largely due to the rebuffed merger between Sprint and T-Mobile that is likely to be approved under a Trump presidency.
Of the 8,000 jobs promised, 5,000 are going to Sprint and 3,000 are going to OneWeb, LA Times reports. In his announcement on the matter, Trump noted that the jobs will be taken from foreign nations, which should provide his supporters with a sense of vindication.
"They have taken them from other countries. They are bringing them back to the United States," Trump has announced at his Mar-a-Lago estate.