WASHINGTON _President-elect Donald Trump doubled down on his threat against U.S. businesses that send jobs abroad on Sunday, declaring it an "expensive mistake" and warning of a huge tax if companies try to sell foreign-made goods in the U.S.
Trump said he would impose a 35 percent tariff on goods produced overseas as he encouraged businesses to consider looking for better deals by moving state to state.
The tax would make leaving "financially difficult," Trump also said in Twitter posts. "These companies are able to move between all 50 states, with no tax or tariff being charged."
Trump will make decisions about companies that might move jobs "on a day-to-day basis," Vice President-elect Mike Pence said on ABC's "This Week."
But neither Trump nor Pence provided clarity about what tariffs Trump might try to impose, on his own or with Congress, or how he would apply them.
The elliptical announcement follows a week in which Trump bragged about his ability to persuade U.S. corporations to reconsider moving jobs abroad.
Trump traveled to Indiana last week to mark the decision by Carrier, a heating and cooling manufacturer, to keep roughly half the 2,000 jobs it was planning to move to Mexico. Carrier's impending move was a key talking point during Trump's campaign for president, and during his visit to the plant, Trump celebrated his influence in the decision.
Carrier also won $7 million in incentives from the state, drawing concerns from critics about whether Trump had actually demonstrated how companies might extort benefits from state and local officials by threatening to move jobs out of the country.
But Pence characterized the process more as an act of diplomacy that Trump had initiated.
"What the president-elect did with Carrier was simply reach out one American to another and ask them to reconsider," Pence said on "This Week."
