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Version 1 Version 2
Trump Assails Obama Over U.N. Action on Israeli Settlements Trump Takes Credit for Sprint Plan to Add 5,000 Jobs in U.S.
(about 9 hours later)
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — President-elect Donald J. Trump lashed out at President Obama on Wednesday for what he called the administration’s failure to support Israel at the United Nations, saying the United States had treated its ally in the Middle East with “total disdain and disrespect.” President-elect Donald J. Trump took credit on Wednesday for a decision by Sprint to add 5,000 jobs in the United States as he tried to deliver on his promise to force corporate America to focus on job creation at home rather than abroad.
In two Twitter posts, the president-elect assailed the Obama administration for its decision last week to abstain from a resolution condemning Israeli construction of settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Mr. Trump’s Twitter posts came just hours before Secretary of State John Kerry was expected to deliver a speech in Washington responding to that criticism. “I was just called by the head people at Sprint, and they are going to be bringing 5,000 jobs back to the United States,” Mr. Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. “They have taken them from other countries. They are bringing them back to the United States.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel responded to those postings with cordial words for Mr. Trump. The announcement followed a meeting Mr. Trump had this month with Masayoshi Son, the chief executive of Japan’s SoftBank, which said it would invest $50 billion in the United States and create 50,000 positions.
Mr. Trump had pressured Mr. Obama to veto the United Nations resolution, injecting himself directly into American foreign policy before he assumes power next month. But the forceful intervention, including a discussion with Egypt’s president, failed to prevent passage of the resolution. SoftBank owns a controlling stake in Sprint, the mobile phone carrier, and is a major investor in OneWeb, a satellite start-up that Mr. Trump said Wednesday would create an additional 3,000 jobs in the United States.
Wednesday’s comments repeated Mr. Trump’s assertion that American policy toward Israel will change drastically once he replaces Mr. Obama in the Oval Office. Last week, the president-elect described the United Nations as a “club for people to get together, talk and have a good time.” He called that “So sad!” but vowed to negotiate peace in the Middle East despite the last-minute actions of Mr. Obama’s administration. It was not clear whether the combined 8,000 jobs were part of that 50,000 commitment from Mr. Son.
Mr. Trump’s comments about Israel came after another Twitter post in which the president-elect complained about what he called inflammatory “statements and roadblocks” from Mr. Obama, suggesting that whatever good will existed between the two men immediately after the election had disappeared. Although Mr. Trump claimed credit for SoftBank’s $50 billion investment in the United States, those plans predated the election, and Mr. Son has owned a controlling stake in Sprint, among other companies, for several years.
It was not clear exactly what Mr. Trump was referring to. In a speech on Tuesday in Hawaii to commemorate the attacks on Pearl Harbor 75 years ago, Mr. Obama appeared to take a veiled swipe at the way Mr. Trump campaigned for president, saying that “even when hatred burns hottest and the tug of tribalism is at the most primal, we must resist the urge to turn in. We must resist the urge to demonize those who are different.” Since the election, Sprint shares have risen nearly 40 percent, partly on hopes that it could be acquired by its rival T-Mobile. While antitrust officials under President Obama have been wary of deals in the telecom sector, Mr. Son and investors are hoping the Trump administration might look more favorably on any potential deal.
And in an interview with David Axelrod, his former senior adviser, Mr. Obama said last week that he believed he would have defeated Mr. Trump if the Constitution allowed him to run for a third term. In January, as part of a restructuring effort, Sprint cut 2,500 jobs in call centers across the United States and at its headquarters in Overland Park, Kan.
That claim annoyed Mr. Trump, who posted several Twitter messages over the last several days taking issue with it. In one, he noted that Mr. Obama had personally campaigned in swing states that Mr. Trump ended up winning. In another, he insisted that voters would have turned against Mr. Obama because of concern over jobs, the Affordable Care Act and terrorism. On Wednesday, the company said in a statement that it would be creating or bringing back jobs in a variety of departments, including customer care and sales, and that all would be added by the end of its 2017 fiscal year. It was not clear where in the country those jobs would be.
“We are excited to work with President-elect Trump and his administration to do our part to drive economic growth and create jobs in the U.S.,” said Marcelo Claure, Sprint’s chief executive. “We believe it is critical for business and government to partner together to create more job opportunities in the U.S. and ensure prosperity for all Americans.”
In November, Mr. Trump reached a deal with Carrier to keep roughly 850 jobs at its factory in Indianapolis, instead of transferring them to Mexico, which the company had initially said it would do in February. Despite Mr. Trump’s pressure, Carrier and its parent, United Technologies, still plan to move more than 1,000 jobs now in Indiana to Monterrey, Mexico.
They are not the only ones. Another Indianapolis factory, owned by the ball bearing maker Rexnord, also plans to soon leave Indianapolis for Mexico, despite criticism from the president-elect on Twitter and threats to impose steep tariffs on companies that move production abroad.