Mr Trump last week reached a deal with United Technologies to keep about 1100 jobs at a Carrier air-conditioning plant in Indianapolis rather than move them to Mexico. The president-elect signalled he will frequently deal with corporate leaders to protect American workers.

"We're going to have a lot of phone calls to companies that say they're thinking about leaving this country, because they're not leaving this country," Mr Trump said on December 1 at the Carrier plant in Indiana. President-elect Donald Trump and Vice-President-elect Mike Pence during a visit to the Carrier factory in Indianapolis on Thursday. Credit:AP Mr Trump claimed credit for the Carrier deal, which will see Indiana state officials give United Technologies $US7 million worth of tax breaks to encourage the company to keep the 1100 jobs at its Indianapolis plant. However the air-conditioner maker will still send an estimated 1,300 jobs to Mexico. The deal does nothing to prevent other employers from shipping work out of state and has been criticised by Democrats and Republicans alike, who call it corporate welfare.

Senator Bernie Sanders, who attacked US trade policy in his race against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, said Mr Trump's deal with Carrier set a "very dangerous precedent" of having taxpayers subsidise multi-billion dollar corporations to "beg them" to keep jobs in the country. On Friday night, Mr Trump took to Twitter to criticise a second firm, Rexnord, over plans to move production to Mexico. Rexnord, an industrial supplier based in Milwaukee, announced plans back in October to move a bearing plant – and its 300 jobs – from Indianapolis to Mexico. Company representatives on Saturday did not respond to a request for comment on Mr Trump's tweet.

However Mr Sanders on Saturday challenged Mr Trump over Rexnord. Mr Sanders supports tougher policies on corporations for outsourcing. During the presidential campaign, Mr Trump frequently pilloried Carrier for planning to move production to Mexico as he appealed to blue-collar voters in the Midwest, including in Indiana, whose governor, Mike Pence, is the vice-president-elect. It is unclear what steps would have to be taken by federal authorities before Mr Trump could penalise individual companies shifting jobs abroad.

It is also not clear if American companies currently manufacturing products abroad – such as his daughter Ivanka's company – would be affected by the new tariffs. On the election trail, Mr Trump espoused an aggressively protectionist stance toward international trade, and his skepticism of the benefits of globalisation resonated with many middle-class voters who bore the brunt of its downside. But since his election, his advisers have softened some of his most heated rhetoric. Mr Trump's pick for treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, and commerce secretary nominee Wilbur Ross both said that they would pursue bilateral trade agreements with other countries but remained wary of sweeping regional deals. Mr Ross also said that blanket double-digits tariffs on goods from Mexico and China – which many economists warned could spark a damaging trade war – would only be used as a last resort. But Mr Trump's comments on Sunday indicate that he is not backing away from one key pledge: to punish companies that take jobs offshore.

Loading "We're living through the greatest jobs theft in the history of the world," Mr Trump said last week. Bloomberg, Reuters, Washington Post