President Trump has repeatedly claimed massive new investments flowing into the United States — at times saying $21 trillion committed in a year and, more recently, “$18 trillion being invested” in 10 months. A CBS News review found no evidence that commitments or actual investments approach those figures, which would equal roughly two-thirds of U.S. annual GDP.
The White House’s own list of major investments “made possible by President Trump’s leadership” totaled $9.6 trillion as of its November update, but that figure is inflated. It mixes new commitments with projects announced under prior administrations, trade targets that are not direct investments in the U.S., and some duplicated or unclear entries. The administration did not provide documentation reconciling its total with the far larger sums the president has cited. White House spokesman Kush Desai defended the claims broadly, saying the president had secured “trillions in investments” and opportunities for American companies.
Examples of misattributed or overstated items
– Micron Technology: The White House lists a $200 billion investment in semiconductor manufacturing and research. Micron confirmed $120 billion of that was announced in 2022 and supported by funding tied to the Biden-era CHIPS and Science Act.
– GlobalFoundries: Cited as a $16 billion U.S. investment, but a company spokesperson said only $3 billion is newly promised this year; the rest had been announced earlier and is tied to CHIPS Act tax credits.
– Invenergy (Grain Belt Express): The administration highlighted a $1.7 billion commitment to a clean-energy transmission project. That project earlier lost a $4.9 billion Department of Energy loan guarantee that had been issued under Biden; Invenergy says it is continuing the project with private financing.
– Duplicate or unclear entries: The White House list contains apparent errors (for example, a $3 billion Kraft Heinz pledge appears twice) and has not clarified those issues.
Foreign trade goals and aspirational pledges inflate totals
Nearly $6 trillion on the White House list comes from foreign governments, but several large entries are trade targets rather than concrete investments. Examples:
– Qatar: A joint announcement cited an economic exchange “worth at least $1.2 trillion” without specifying how much Qatar would spend in the U.S. or on what timeline; the figure far exceeds Qatar’s GDP.
– India: The U.S. and India set a goal to “more than double total bilateral trade to $500 billion by 2030” — a trade target, not a single investment commitment.
– Saudi Arabia: During a crown prince visit, Saudi officials reportedly pledged roughly $1 trillion in U.S. investment. Economists have questioned whether Saudi Arabia could realistically deploy that scale of investment given global energy price trends and historical gaps between headline pledges and realized spending.
What the data show about actual investment
Federal data indicate actual investment spending remains much more modest than the administration’s largest claims:
– Gross private domestic investment, the broad measure of business spending on equipment, structures and R&D, is projected at about $5.4 trillion for the year, roughly $100 billion above last year but far below a multitrillion surge.
– New foreign direct investment into U.S. subsidiaries and projects totaled roughly $145 billion in the first half of the year, nearly identical to $144 billion in the same period last year.
– fDi Intelligence reported foreign corporations pledged over $270 billion in new investments from January through October — more than double the volume in the comparable period under President Biden — but analysts caution that pledges often do not materialize.
– The Peterson Institute estimates total foreign investments this year will be under $400 billion, well below record levels.
Experts’ perspectives
Economists and policy researchers note that announcements and headline commitments are not the same as realized spending. Nicholas Bloom (Stanford) observed that while commitments may have risen, actual spending on equipment, buildings and machinery in 2025 looks similar to 2024. Tom Taylor (Atlas Public Policy) said the administration’s funding cuts and policy shifts have disrupted or halted some clean manufacturing projects, quantifying over $20.8 billion in halted investments this year. Gary Clyde Hufbauer (Peterson Institute) highlighted the abundance of announcements compared with the much smaller sums actually arriving.
This story was updated with additional information from Invenergy. Emma Li contributed to the reporting.