President Donald Trump has repeatedly said that the United States has received trillions of dollars in investment commitments since taking office in January, and that the amounts he cites vary.
On January 21, his second day in office, President Trump said the United States had “already secured nearly $3 trillion in new investment.”
By May 8, that amount had grown to “nearly $10 trillion.” The amount finally reached its peak on October 29, during a meeting with South Korean Prime Minister Kim Min-seok. “I think by the end of my first term, we should have $21 trillion or $22 trillion invested in the United States by other people and countries,” President Trump said.
Since then, Trump has reported various investment amounts.
On Nov. 27 and Dec. 2, it said it was worth nearly $20 trillion. He said it was about $18 trillion on Dec. 2, Dec. 3, Dec. 4, and Dec. 9, but he first mentioned this number on Oct. 10.
President Trump has at times described the promise as approaching a $1 figure. Other times, he says, he’s already reached that number.
In May, when President Trump said, “We have nearly $10 trillion invested right now,” we rated it “false.” The White House documents showed that the amount was at least $4.9 trillion less than President Trump claimed.
Trump said the $10 trillion figure has roughly doubled in the seven months since then, but this is unsubstantiated. At the upper end, $22 trillion would be about three-quarters of the United States’ total annual gross domestic product (GDP) in 2024, an unusual total for the richest country in world history.
The $9.6 trillion is documented on the White House website, but not all of what the website cites is a new promise for President Trump’s second term. Experts say there is no guarantee that all the promised money will be realized and that some of the investments would have been made regardless of the president.
The White House did not respond to PolitiFact’s questions about President Trump’s remarks.
One way to benchmark President Trump’s investments is to look at what the White House has publicly documented.
In April, the White House launched a webpage listing countries and companies that have announced investments during President Trump’s second term.
We used the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine to track investment amounts listed on the White House website over time. The numbers Trump used were typically at least twice the amounts listed on the website.
In recent weeks, the White House website reported $9.6 trillion, while President Trump has cited numbers between $18 trillion and $22 trillion.
Does President Trump have an accurate grasp of foreign and corporate investments?
The numbers on the White House website include ambitious, multi-year goals and count future product purchases rather than capital expenditures. Some of the biggest items, such as those made by the United Arab Emirates and Qatar governments, have been called into question because their promises are several times the annual gross domestic product of those countries.
Of the $9.6 trillion the White House posted on its website in late November, $7 trillion could be considered “substantive investment commitments,” according to a Bloomberg Economics analysis. The remaining $2.6 trillion includes agreements between countries to purchase items such as natural gas and expand trade in the future. The analysis characterized some investment commitments by other countries as “amorphous.”
More than 80% of investments from private companies were for artificial intelligence-related spending.
“Many of the pledges cited by the White House are part of overlapping multi-company projects, making it difficult to determine how many can be counted more than once,” Bloomberg said.
The 10 items listed on the White House website accounted for the bulk of the $9.6 trillion detailed by the White House. Some of the White House documents include details such as the specific companies involved and the types of facilities and infrastructure envisioned. Other examples are more ambiguous. Some are related to traditional investments, while others are related to anticipated increases in trade.
1. United Arab Emirates: $1.4 trillion. The White House says the investments will focus on AI infrastructure, semiconductors, energy, quantum computing, biotechnology and manufacturing. Companies cited in the White House news release include Boeing, GE Aerospace, Emirates Global Aluminum, ExxonMobil, Occidental Petroleum, Qualcomm and Amazon Web Services. It is unclear how much of this investment will come from new investments.
The UAE’s gross domestic product in 2024 is $537 billion, and this commitment is equivalent to three years of the country’s gross economic product.
2. Qatar: $1.2 trillion. A White House press release describes this as an “economic exchange” rather than a unilateral investment. It cited the involvement of companies such as Boeing, GE Aerospace, Raytheon, General Atomics, ExxonMobil and Chevron Phillips. The announcement described a mix of trade deals, purchase agreements and investment intentions, which analysts said often included forward-looking initiatives rather than capital injections.
Qatar’s gross domestic product in 2024 will be $218 billion, and this commitment is equivalent to almost six years of the country’s entire economy.
3. Japan: $1 trillion. The White House said Japan is on track to invest $1 trillion by the end of President Trump’s term, following an initial agreement to invest $550 billion in sectors including semiconductors, shipbuilding, energy, pharmaceuticals, metals and minerals. Japan also objects that this would result in a unilateral flow of funds to the United States. “Rather than $550 billion in cash going to the United States, it will be a combination of investments, loans and loan guarantees by financial institutions backed by the Japanese government,” Bloomberg News quoted Japanese trade negotiator Yoshio Akazawa as saying.
4. Meta: $600 billion. The White House and social media companies said $600 billion is tied to Meta’s U.S. AI infrastructure and workforce expansion plans through 2028.
5. Apple: $600 billion. Apple has a long history of making multi-year domestic investment commitments, meaning the $600 billion figure includes previous commitments as well as recent accelerations. Apple’s news release explains that the new $100 billion increase will bring total U.S. commitments to $600 billion over several years. The release mentions new U.S. manufacturing programs, supplier investments and training programs.
6. Saudi Arabia: $600 billion. The administration said the $600 billion from Saudi Arabia would include the energy, critical minerals and defense sectors.
The amount mentioned is equivalent to about half of Saudi Arabia’s 2024 gross domestic product.
7. European Union Enterprises: $600 billion. In August, the EU announced that “European companies are expected to invest an additional $600 billion across strategic sectors in the United States by 2028.” However, this statement frames this as an aspiration rather than a promise.
8. Stargate: $500 billion. The consortium of SoftBank, OpenAI, and Oracle was announced at a White House event on January 21st. Stargate said $100 billion will be invested “immediately” and the consortium “intends to invest” a total of $500 billion over the next four years. Among other things, OpenAI published a blog post outlining plans for five new sites that would bring the project’s near-term investment value “in excess of $400 billion,” putting the project on track for its $500 billion goal.
9. NVIDIA: $500 billion. The White House announced that NVIDIA has committed to building $500 billion worth of AI infrastructure in the United States over the next four years. NVIDIA said it is pursuing “ambitious” manufacturing and server production in the United States, but the $500 billion figure remains a goal.
10. India: $500 billion. The so-called “Mission 500” aims to reach $500 billion in annual bilateral trade by 2030. But these are trade targets, not investment commitments, and their end date would be after the end of President Trump’s term. Additionally, the framework appears to allow U.S. purchases of Indian goods to count toward the goal, which does not encourage U.S. investment or production.
Importantly, experts say some of these promises will not materialize.
“Historically, large investment announcements often over-promise and under-deliver,” Roman V. Yampolsky, an AI expert at the University of Louisville, told PolitiFact in May. “They have a performative element, especially in a political context. They function not only as an economic engagement, but also as a political theater.”
Trump is not the first president to exaggerate new investments. In 2024, President Joe Biden said the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act attracted $640 billion in private investment. Economists told PolitiFact that Biden’s numbers are based on company announcements and are not the same as the amount already spent.
our verdict
President Trump said the United States has received investment commitments totaling between $18 trillion and $22 trillion since he took office in January.
The number cited by President Trump is about twice the number listed on the White House website. And experts say the website’s current figure of $9.6 trillion should be viewed with caution.
This includes ambitious multi-year goals that may or may not be realized, and some items are future product purchases or sales rather than capital investments.
For the two largest items, commitments from the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, the amounts are several times the annual gross domestic product of those countries.
We rate Trump’s statement FALSE.
