Workers at a South Carolina Boeing factory are bracing themselves for layoffs just five months after President Donald Trump visited the plant "to celebrate jobs."
Boeing confirmed on Thursday that up to 200 employees would be let go from the North Charleston location. Also this week, CNBC reported reported that Carrier will make cuts at its factory in Indianapolis.
Both plants were important backdrops in the president's push to preserve American jobs.
In South Carolina, part of the assembly line that produces the Boeing 787-10 Dreamliner aircraft, Trump promised to "fight for every last American job" during a campaign-style rally in February.
And Trump vowed that "companies are not going to leave the United States anymore without consequences" at the Carrier plant in Indiana less than a month after winning the election.
But Boeing said in a statement that it was cutting jobs, part of a plan announced in December, citing "relentless" competition.
"That has made clear our need as a company to reduce cost to be more competitive," Boeing said. "We are offering resources to those affected by layoffs to help them in finding other employment and ease their transition as much as possible."
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Boeing has already eliminated more than 13,000 jobs in the past year.
In December, Carrier announced it received a $7 million tax break from Indiana, where Vice President Mike Pence was governor, on the same day Trump took a tour. The tax break was an incentive to keep jobs on American soil, contingent on meeting certain employment, job retention and investment goals.
But CNBC reports that the company will layoff 600 employees. At the time, 1,400 workers were slated to be laid off. But the deal only seemed to save 800 union workers.
