How successful is Trump in targeting companies?

In some cases, Trump has claimed victory in terms of saving jobs or taxpayer dollars. And in some of those instances, the companies in question have played along, looking to stay on the right side of the incoming administration. But the underlying success are often mixed.

THE TARGET: General Motors

Early Tuesday morning, Trump criticized General Motors for making some models of the Chevrolet Cruze for sale in the U.S. in Mexico. They should be manufactured in the U.S., he said, or else the company should face a “big border tax.”

General Motors responded by noting that only a few thousand hatchback models of the Cruze made in Mexico have been sold in the U.S., and that the vast majority were manufactured domestically. The company didn’t say it would stop making those vehicles outside the country.

Unlike some of its rivals, General Motors previously had mostly escaped Trump’s criticisms of the auto industry, the sharpest of which have been reserved for Ford.

Of interest, Trump avoided stating specifically that the border tax would be the 35 percent tariff he referred to in the election, leaving open the possibility that something closer to the House Republican tax plan might be sufficient.

THE TARGET: Ford

Ford announced Tuesday that it was canceling plans to build a new plant in Mexico and instead would be investing $700 million in Michigan and bringing 700 jobs to its plant in Flat Rock.

Trump claimed victory, retweeting an adviser declaring that his policies were to to thank for keeping jobs in the country.

It’s not firmly established that Ford made the decision because of Trump.

In an interview on Bloomberg TV, Ford CEO Mark Fields said the company would have made the same call even if Trump weren’t elected. Yet, in a speech in Flat Rock, he also said that the investment in Michigan was a “vote of confidence” in the tax and regulatory policies sketched out by Trump and congressional Republicans.

This wasn’t Ford’s first run-in with Trump after the election.

In November, Trump took credit for keeping a Lincoln plant in Kentucky, saying that he “owed it to the great state of Kentucky for their confidence in me.”

In fact, Ford, the owner of Lincoln, only reversed course on moving production of one model of sport-utility vehicles to Mexico, and no net jobs were necessarily affected by the decision. Nevertheless, company leadership decided not to move the production to Mexico in part to curry favor with Trump, the Wall Street Journal reported.

THE TARGET: SoftBank

In early December, Trump unexpectedly appeared in the lobby at Trump Tower to announce that the Japanese telecommunications group SoftBank intended to invest $50 billion in the U.S. and create 50,000 new jobs, thanks to him.

SoftBank chief Masayoshi Son did credit Trump for getting him to invest in the U.S. But the money was to come from a pre-existing fund, some of which was already likely earmarked for investments in U.S. companies. Furthermore, the 50,000 jobs number was not explained nor justified.

Last week, Sprint announced it would keep 5,000 jobs in the U.S., and sister company OneWeb would add 3,000 jobs in the country, which Trump took credit for, saying the deal “was done through” Son.

A Sprint spokesman said after the jobs were announced that the positions were part of the previously announced deal with SoftBank. SoftBank owns about 80 percent of Sprint and has invested $1 billion in OneWeb, CNBC reported.

THE TARGET: Carrier

Trump tweeted on Thanksgiving that he was working to keep Carrier, an air conditioner maker, from moving jobs to Mexico. Trump talked about Carrier throughout the campaign as an example of what’s gone wrong in the country. It provided a vivid example because a video had gone viral in February showing Carrier workers in Indianapolis being told that operations were being moved to Mexico.

Within a week of Trump’s tweet, Carrier announced its intent to keep jobs in Indiana, and Trump was claiming that the company was keeping 1,100 job in the state rather than moving them to Mexico.

Carrier said that the announcement was possible because of Trump’s promises regarding business policies and because of tax incentives offered by the state.

Later in December, however, the head of the automaker’s union said that only 800 jobs were saved, and that more than 550 jobs from the Indianapolis plant still would be moved to Mexico, along with 700 jobs from another site in Indiana.

And in an interview with CNBC, the CEO of United Technologies, the parent company of Carrier, said that the company would be spending $16 million in automation for the Indianapolis factory, with the effect of reducing jobs.

THE TARGET: Boeing

On Dec. 6, Trump abruptly tweeted that the government should cancel the order for a new Air Force One from Boeing, saying that costs could run above $4 billion.

Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago just before Christmas, and told reporters that he promised to have the plan delivered for less than $4 billion.

That promise, however, may not represent much of a concession, given that the $4 billion figure represented an outside estimate of the cost for two planes, projected by a consulting group.

THE TARGET: Lockheed Martin

On Dec. 22, Trump took aim at the F-35 fighter jet program, tweeting that he had asked Boeing to estimate the price of an alternative to the Lockheed Martin plane.

He sent the tweet the day after he met with the heads of both Boeing and Lockheed Martin at Mar-a-Lago.

Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson said the next day that the company would aim to lower the cost of the jet. “I’ve heard his message loud and clear about reducing the cost of the F-35,” she said in a statement released by the company. “I gave him my personal commitment to drive the cost down aggressively.”