When Donald Trump and then-Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker announced a plan to give billions of dollars to the notorious Taiwanese sweatshop operator Foxconn to build a super-factory in Wisconsin, knowledgeable people were alarmed.

That's because Foxconn has a long history of defrauding governments by promising to build big ambitious factories in their territories, absorbing massive subsidies, then abandoning the project, leaving behind a modest facility, or nothing at all.

Despite these misgivings, Walker and his GOP state legislators set about bulldozing Wisconsinites' family homes to make way for the Foxconn factory, guaranteeing ever-larger subsidies even as Foxconn quietly began to scale back its plans and the number of jobs it would create. The total bill rose to $4.1b, even as Foxconn canceled the factory altogether and proposed replacing it with a modest R&D facility primarily staffed by out-of-state researchers, rather than the locals who were footing the bill for Foxconn's massive subsidies.

The company went back and forth on its plans for months, putting on a bizarre show to keep alive a plausible claim that Wisconsin would get something in exchange for its generosity. But as the deal attracted more and more scrutiny, it became increasingly obvious that Wisconsin had been foxconned.

Now, Foxconn and Tony Evers (the new, Democratic governor of Wisconsin) are renegotiating the deal. Foxconn asked the state to release it from its obligations, without removing the (now $4.5b -- that's $172k/job, assuming Foxconn builds the factory it originally proposed!) guarantee of subsidies, including cash payouts if the company never does enough business in Wisconsin to use the tax-credits it's been promised. Read the rest

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