&w=3840&q=100)
Trump boasts of $14 tn US investment, WH lists just $2.6 tn, including $1.3 tn made under Biden
Within hours of taking office in January, President Donald Trump boasted about attracting $3 trillion in new corporate investments to the United States. Since then, Trump has said the investments have swelled to $14 trillion, or roughly half of the nation's annual gross domestic product.
The White House calls it 'The Trump Effect' and features a rolling list on its website of more than 70 projects it says Trump's economic policies spurred, from a new bakery plant in Texas to a LEGO facility in Virginia and a microchip plant in Arizona.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
As of July 2, the website listed more than $2.6 trillion in US investments, well short of the $14 trillion Trump boasts about.
But a Reuters review found that just under half of the claimed spending on the website - totalling more than $1.3 trillion - originated under former President Joe Biden or represented routine spending repackaged to promote domestic investments.
At least eight of the projects touted by the White House had sought or secured critical local incentive packages before Trump took office while at least a half dozen other projects had already been announced by local officials or the companies themselves, Reuters found.
Two of the Trump Effect projects were aided by Biden's legislative efforts to boost domestic manufacturing, the review found.
One company on the list, Swiss-based Roche, warned that Trump's plans to equalize US and international drug prices now threatens its promised $50 billion in US investments.
Asked about taking credit for projects already underway before Trump came into office, the White House said the final investment decisions were announced under his watch and prove his economic policies are triggering US investment.
'President Trump is the greatest closer in modern history, and his leadership and policies are a critical catalyst converting hypothetical discussions into firm investment commitments and ground being broken for new plants and offices," White House spokesman Kush Desai said.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
The Reuters review included interviewing local officials and reviewing public records and corporate statements. It was not clear in many cases what role, if any, Trump or his policies played in getting the deals across the line.
Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody's Analytics, said his economic forecast - along with the consensus estimates - for investment in the economy has remained relatively unchanged despite the White House's claims of new historic investments.
'I think despite all the announcements it hasn't translated into any change in expectations,' Zandi said. 'The fundamentals that ultimately drive investment spending, broadly, if anything, appear to have weakened since the start of the year.'
Trump's push to impose sweeping tariffs on dozens of trading partners has injected uncertainty into global markets, lowering economic projections and freezing investment decisions, Zandi said.
Trump's supporters say his policies of deregulation combined with the extension of his corporate tax cuts last week have stoked interest from companies that will be converted into actual investments in the months ahead.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
'I think you're going to see a lot more investment later this year, and certainly into next year,' Richard Stern, director of economic and budget policy at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said.
The Trump Effect
The Trump Effect list is not exhaustive, according to the White House, and does not include the foreign deals the administration says Trump secured during his Middle East tour in May.
The White House did not respond to a Reuters request to provide a breakdown of the $14 trillion in US investments Trump claims he has attracted.
Trump wouldn't be the first president to inflate or embellish economic activity on his watch. But the onetime businessman has made his dealmaking the centerpiece of his political persona, promising his presidency would ignite a manufacturing renaissance that would bring jobs back to the US
Some companies, largely in the pharmaceutical industry, repackaged existing spending that was later touted as new investment by Trump. The pharmaceutical companies also credited Trump's 2017 tax cuts for spurring domestic investment.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks created the blueprint, said James Shin, a pharmaceutical analyst at Deutsche Bank Securities. Ricks joined top administration officials in February to announce $27 billion in new US investments over five years.
The figure drew praise from Trump who said it's evidence his tariffs were working to spur domestic manufacturing, but the figure represented a slight increase over the $23 million the company spent in the US since 2020.
'Everyone saw that Donald Trump gave David Ricks blessings every time he spoke,' Shin said. 'I think Lilly was quite shrewd in its timing and in its messaging.'
An Eli Lilly spokesperson did not address Reuters questions about the company's incremental increase in spending and what role Trump played, if any, in its announcement.
Claiming credit
Here's a sampling of the projects included on the White House's Trump Effect website that Reuters found had been announced or were already in the pipeline prior to Trump's presidency:
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
Hyundai: The South Korean carmaker was added to the Trump Effect list after announcing a $5.8 billion new Louisiana steel plant in March. But the company selected the Louisiana site in December 2024 after conducting a nationwide search, according to a state official. Hyundai did not respond to a request for comment,
Corning: The global materials science company was added to the list after a $1.5 billion investment in Michigan was highlighted in an April press release.
But the figure includes $900 million in funding announced in February of last year for the plant, and the project has benefited from federal tax credits under the CHIPS and Science Act, a bipartisan measure passed under Biden that incentivizes domestic production, the company confirmed to Reuters.
Trump has called for Congress to claw back the chips funding, calling the legislation a 'horrible, horrible thing.'
The company would not say whether Trump had any direct connection to the investment.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
LEGO: The iconic toy manufacturer announced a new $366 million distribution center in Virginia in May and was added to the Trump website. The company began working with Virginia on a package of state and local incentives in 2022, roughly three years before Trump took office, according to Pryor Green, the Virginia economic development spokesperson.
The company did not respond to request for comment.
Clasen Quality Chocolate: The candy company announced a new $230 million production facility in Virginia in February and was added to Trump's website.
But the Virginia Economic Development Partnership began working with the company roughly seven months before Trump took office, and Governor Glenn Youngkin approved a $3 million grant for the project on December 3, Green told Reuters.
The company did not respond to a request for comment.
Chobani: The White House added the yogurt maker to its list after the company in April announced a $1.2 billion production plant in New York. But Chobani, which did not respond to a request for comment, had reached out to the state in May of last year about the project, state records show, and benefited from a state program that lures companies with shovel-ready sites.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
Local incentives
Some other deals touted by Trump were either struck before he took office, spurred by state and local incentive packages or represent routine capital investment, the Reuters review found.
Pharmaceutical companies Merck and Johnson & Johnson both announced billions of dollars in US investments that included projects that were previously announced and already under construction, according to a review of company statements.
The White House list included $2 billion in Merck projects already underway in North Carolina and Delaware and a $2 billion North Carolina project under construction by Johnson & Johnson, statements show.
Johnson & Johnson did not respond to a request for comment, and Merck did not address Reuters' questions about Trump's role in its investment decisions.
Many of the projects on the list relied heavily on state and local incentive packages - such as grants or tax breaks - that were approved prior to Trump taking office in January, Reuters found. States typically compete against one another for company investments, using incentive packages as bait.
The locally-backed projects on the Trump Effect list include Diageo, a British alcoholic beverage company, whose $415 million new Alabama plant was aided by state and local tax incentives that date back to 2022, roughly three years before Trump took office, according to Stefania Jones, an Alabama Department of Commerce spokesperson.
Diageo did not respond to requests for comment.
Ireland-based power management company Eaton Corporation, French ceramics manufacturer Saint-Gobain and South Korean baker Paris Baguette, for example, were all highlighted on the Trump Effect list, but records and interviews show they all secured local incentive packages before Trump took office.
The companies did not respond to requests for comment.
Tech investments
In some cases, the investment touted by the White House and the companies represented the normal cost of business.
Apple CEO Tim Cook announced in February that his iconic company was going to invest $500 billion over five years to hire 20,000 workers and build new AI servers. Trump seized on the announcement, saying on his Truth Social media platform that it showed 'faith in what we are doing.'
However, Apple's announced figure is in line with what one might expect the company to be spending anyway, given its financials, according to three analysts.
'For Apple, most of this would have happened regardless of who's president,' said Dan Ives, a senior equity analyst with Wedbush Securities.
It also echoes previous commitments.
Four years ago, a few months after Biden's inauguration, Apple announced an 'acceleration' of its US investments, pledging to spend $430 billion and add 20,000 jobs over five years.
In January 2018, during Trump's first term, the company said that its 'direct contribution to the US economy' would be $350 billion over five years and that it planned to create 20,000 jobs over that period.
Another pledge to spend $500 billion for new data centers to power artificial intelligence programs dubbed 'Stargate' came from ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, Japanese conglomerate SoftBank and business software giant Oracle, whose executives joined Trump in the White House on his first full day as president in January to make the announcement.
The companies said they planned to spend $100 billion 'immediately' but that they were still in negotiations with various states about where to place the new data centers.
'As announced in January, Stargate remains fully committed to investing up to $500 billion over the next four years to build AI infrastructure in the United States," SoftBank and OpenAI said in a joint statement to Reuters.
Oracle did not respond to a request for comment.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
&w=3840&q=100)
Business Standard
33 minutes ago
- Business Standard
Supreme Court clears way for Trump's plans to downsize federal workforce
The justices overrode lower court orders that temporarily froze the cuts, which have been led by the Department of Government Efficiency AP Washington The Supreme Court on Tuesday cleared the way for President Donald Trump's plans to downsize the federal workforce despite warnings that critical government services will be lost and hundreds of thousands of federal employees will be out of their jobs. The justices overrode lower court orders that temporarily froze the cuts, which have been led by the Department of Government Efficiency. The court said in an unsigned order that no specific cuts were in front of the justices, only an executive order issued by Trump and an administration directive for agencies to undertake job reductions. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the only dissenting vote, accusing her colleagues of a demonstrated enthusiasm for greenlighting this President's legally dubious actions in an emergency posture. Trump has repeatedly said voters gave him a mandate to remake the federal government, and he tapped billionaire ally Elon Musk to lead the charge through DOGE. Musk recently left his role. Tens of thousands of federal workers have been fired, have left their jobs via deferred resignation programs or have been placed on leave. There is no official figure for the job cuts, but at least 75,000 federal employees took deferred resignation and thousands of probationary workers have already been let go. In May, US District Judge Susan Illston found that Trump's administration needs congressional approval to make sizable reductions to the federal workforce. By a 2-1 vote, a panel of the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals refused to block Illston's order, finding that the downsizing could have broader effects, including on the nation's food-safety system and health care for veterans. Illston directed numerous federal agencies to halt acting on the president's workforce executive order signed in February and a subsequent memo issued by DOGE and the Office of Personnel Management. Illston was nominated by former Democratic President Bill Clinton. The labour unions and nonprofit groups that sued over the downsizing offered the justices several examples of what would happen if it were allowed to take effect, including cuts of 40% per cent to 50 per cent at several agencies. Among the agencies affected by the order are the departments of Agriculture, Energy, Labour, the Interior, State, the Treasury and Veterans Affairs. It also applies to the National Science Foundation, Small Business Association, Social Security Administration and Environmental Protection Agency.
Mint
35 minutes ago
- Mint
Trump administration seeks to ban China from buying US farms
The Trump administration has a message for China: Keep off the farm. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said Tuesday the administration will work with state lawmakers to ban sales of U.S. farmland to buyers from China and other countries of concern, citing national-security interests. Rollins, joined by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, said the government is ratcheting up scrutiny on existing land owned by Chinese buyers and is looking at ways to potentially claw back past purchases. 'We'll never let foreign adversaries control our land," said Rollins. State and federal lawmakers for years have warned that China and other countries could use U.S. farmland to facilitate spying or wield influence over the U.S. food supply chain. Chinese-owned entities hold nearly 300,000 acres—roughly 0.02%—of U.S. farmland, according to Agriculture Department data, an area about the size of Los Angeles. Republicans and Democrats alike have sought to curb foreign ownership of American farmland, at times seeking to increase government scrutiny of purchases and investments. Critics have raised fears that foreign owners could drive up land prices or sidestep environmental rules. China's government has played down such concerns as overblown. Representatives of China's embassy in Washington, D.C., had no immediate comment. Rollins said on Tuesday that U.S. farms are under threat from China and other countries that are trying to infiltrate American agricultural research and steal technology. 'No longer can foreign adversaries assume we aren't watching," Hegseth said. Some state and municipal lawmakers have taken steps in recent years to block China-backed investment or ownership in U.S. agriculture. The city of Grand Forks, N.D., in 2023 halted the construction of a Chinese-owned corn mill after a U.S. Air Force official said the planned $700 million facility could represent a national-security risk because of its proximity to a nearby base. Some China-based ownership of U.S. farmland involves prominent U.S. agriculture companies. Pork giant Smithfield Foods and seed and pesticide supplier Syngenta have both faced criticism from government officials and lawmakers because of their Chinese owners. Smithfield is majority-owned by Chinese pork company WH Group and Syngenta is a subsidiary of China National Chemical. The companies' American leaders have pushed back, saying their China-based owners have helped them invest in U.S. farmers and create jobs. Smithfield in the past represented roughly half of the U.S. farmland owned by Chinese entities, via its Hong Kong-based parent. Much of that had been tied up in hundreds of company-owned hog farms and processing plants, according to federal data. WH Group acquired Smithfield in 2013, aiming to harness its technology and expertise to boost WH's operations in China. Smithfield returned to the U.S. public markets earlier this year, raising roughly $500 million after listing its shares on the Nasdaq Stock Market. WH Group owns about 93% of Smithfield's shares. 'We're an American company, American management team and made in America," Smithfield Chief Executive Shane Smith said in an interview earlier this year. Smithfield last year sold more than 40,000 acres of its U.S. farmland, leaving it with roughly 85,000 acres. Shares of Smithfield fell about 1% on Tuesday. Syngenta, the largest pesticide seller in the U.S., has said it owns a small amount of land for research, development and regulatory trials. The company, which employs about 4,000 people in the U.S., has previously faced calls to sell its farmland holdings. Two years ago, Arkansas ordered Syngenta to sell about 160 acres in the state, where it maintained an agricultural research facility with a few dozen employees. Syngenta at the time called the state's decision shortsighted. A Syngenta spokesman said Tuesday that the company is in the process of selling its remaining U.S. farmland and currently owns less than 1,000 acres in the country. Write to Patrick Thomas at
News18
35 minutes ago
- News18
Elon Musk Says His America Party Would Prioritise Epstein Files In Deepening Rift With Trump
Elon Musk Says His America Party Would Prioritise Epstein Files In Deepening Rift With Trump Curated By : Last Updated: July 09, 2025, 07:14 IST Elon Musk has announced that releasing the Epstein files would be a top priority for his new America Party. Earlier, he asserted that Trump's name was there in the files. Advertisement Elon Musk, who escalated his feud with US President Donald Trump by announcing the formation of a new political party, has now said that releasing the Epstein files would be high on his America Party's priority list. Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk (File photo/AP) Responding to a question on X, on if exposing the Epstein files rank high on the America Party's list, Musk dropped a 'hundred points' symbol, signifying his assurance for the same. Recommended Stories Earlier, Musk had deleted an explosive allegation linking Donald Trump with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein that he posted on social media during a vicious public fallout with the US President. Musk alleged that the Republican leader is featured in unreleased government files on former associates of Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019 while he faced sex trafficking charges. 'Time to drop the really big bomb: (Trump) is in the Epstein files," Musk posted on his social media platform. 'That is the real reason they have not been made public," he alleged. Musk did not reveal which files he was talking about and offered no evidence for his claim. He initially doubled down on the claim, writing in a follow-up message, 'Mark this post for the future. The truth will come out." However, he deleted both tweets the following morning. Meanwhile, the Trump administration acknowledged it was reviewing tens of thousands of documents, videos and investigative material that his 'MAGA" movement says will unmask public figures complicit in Epstein's crimes. Trump was named in a trove of deposition and statements linked to Epstein that were unsealed by a New York judge in early 2024. The President has not been accused of any wrongdoing in the case. DONALD TRUMP VS ELON MUSK The fallout between the two deepened after Republicans passed a major policy bill supported by Trump, prompting Musk to declare his intention to back primary challengers against GOP members who voted for it. In response, Trump dismissed Musk's new party as 'ridiculous" and labelled him a 'train wreck," criticising the effort as one doomed to fail in the US political system. The feud between Musk and Trump marks a major turn in their relationship. Trump had once praised Musk's government cost-cutting efforts and even presented him with a gold key to the White House. During his stint with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Musk had an office at the White House and appeared prominently in Cabinet meetings, The Hill reported. top videos View all Swipe Left For Next Video View all However, now, Trump has hinted at deporting the South African-born US citizen and potentially turning DOGE against Musk's companies. ALSO READ | Trump Snaps At Reporter Over Jeffrey Epstein Query: 'You Are A Waste Of Time' About the Author Vani Mehrotra Vani Mehrotra is the Deputy News Editor at She has nearly 10 years of experience in both national and international news and has previously worked on multiple desks. Vani Mehrotra is the Deputy News Editor at She has nearly 10 years of experience in both national and international news and has previously worked on multiple desks. First Published: July 09, 2025, 07:03 IST News world Elon Musk Says His America Party Would Prioritise Epstein Files In Deepening Rift With Trump
