Former U.S. President Donald Trump has claimed that over $12 trillion in business investment has been “practically committed” during his presidency — a figure he attributes to his administration’s policies of tariffs, tax cuts, and deregulation. However, experts and analysts say the evidence backing that claim falls significantly short of the bold headline.
Speaking at a recent rally, Trump touted the eye-popping number, saying, “Nobody’s ever seen numbers like we have.” If accurate, the amount would represent a threefold increase over the roughly $4 trillion in total gross private investment recorded in the U.S. last year.
But economists and analysts remain skeptical. Business investment figures are reported quarterly, and data from the first three months of the year — covering just two months of Trump’s current term — showed a rise that experts attributed partially to anomalies, such as the resolution of a Boeing strike.
“There’s hardly any real-time data to support claims of a dramatic investment surge,” said Stanford economist Nick Bloom, who studies how uncertainty impacts business spending. “Most of the major investment projects we’re seeing now were approved well before Trump took office. In fact, given ongoing economic uncertainty, I’d guess investment is slightly down — not up.”
Even some of the high-profile investment announcements that Trump cites tell a more nuanced story. For instance, Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche announced a $50 billion U.S. investment plan in April, but company executives confirmed many of the projects had already been planned. Roche also warned that Trump’s proposal to overhaul drug pricing could impact future spending.
The Trump administration’s own running tally of new investment announcements, updated in early June, totaled $5.3 trillion — less than half of what the president claimed. Yet even that figure includes projects that predate his return to office or that may not meet standard definitions of investment. Apple’s $500 billion pledge, for example, includes existing tax payments and employee salaries. Several other entries, such as Stellantis’ $5 billion factory reopening plan and Corning’s manufacturing investment, were initially announced in 2023 or early 2024.
A more conservative estimate by Goldman Sachs placed the real value of new investment attributable to the Trump administration at around $134 billion by mid-May. After adjusting for overlapping timelines and the likelihood that some plans would have occurred regardless, that figure may fall as low as $30 billion.
Still, the White House has pushed back on such criticism. Spokesman Kush Desai defended the administration’s approach, saying, “The Trump administration is using a multifaceted approach to drive investment into the United States… and no amount of pointless nitpicking and hairsplitting can refute that it’s paying off.”
While it’s clear that some firms have praised Trump’s business-friendly policies, experts caution that the gap between rhetoric and reality remains significant — and that meaningful analysis will take more time as new data becomes available.
