Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office were a victory lap of sorts, as he paraded chief executives through the White House. He beamed as he welcomed billion-dollar investment promises from big-name technology and financial industry players. Yet, on his very first day in office, Trump was able to announce those commitments with other all stars like SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son, Oracle’s Larry Ellison, and OpenAI’s Sam Altman. He announced that his administration had essentially booked over $12 trillion in investments.
The president loves to tout the latest investment commitments from big companies like Apple and Hyundai. He employs these examples largely to paint a picture of his administration’s success in establishing a beneficial business climate. His administration’s approach includes radical economic interventions like tariffs, which Trump believes incentivize companies to expand their operations within the United States.
Surprisingly, though, analysts present a much more guarded view of the true effects of Trump’s policies. We acknowledge that some investments are up, but overall growth is much more minimal than what Trump is touting. Economists expect a significant slowdown in investment growth this year attributed to persistent policy uncertainties over tariff and trade policy and regulatory rollback.
German Gutierrez, an economist from the University of Washington, noted that Trump’s emphasis on global competition misdiagnoses the underlying issues facing the U.S. economy. He stated, “The way it’s being done and the type of instruments they are using are not the best ways to achieve this goal. It just takes a lot more to really get this going.”
Stephen Farrelly, global lead for pharma and healthcare at ING, remarked that Trump’s tariff threats have acted as a catalyst for pharmaceutical companies to consider relocating some manufacturing to the U.S. He warned that Trump’s ideas for restructuring drug pricing could threaten these efforts.
Meanwhile, Martin Chorzempa from the Petersen Institute of International Economics pointed out that while the administration’s willingness to intervene has prompted companies to announce investments that flatter Trump, these plans may not be sustainable long-term due to uncertainty regarding government policies. He explained, “A firm making an announcement is a way to get some current benefits, without necessarily being held to those [spending pledges] if the situation changes.”
Even more skeptically, critics point out that most of these investment announcements are actually re-animations of projects that had already been planned prior to Trump’s presidency. Nick Bloom, an economist at Stanford University, stated, “We have hardly any data at this point and almost all the information we have is probably for investment projects that were planned and ordered last year.” That leads to a bigger question about how much of the current wave of investment can be directly attributed to Trump’s policies.
White House spokesman Kush Desai defended the administration’s record on investment, asserting, “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.”
As Goldman Sachs recently noted, the recent surge in investment stands out. Those pale in comparison to the over-the-top high expectations set by the barrage of headlines about Trump’s supposed economic miracles. Analysts are still skeptical as to the long-term viability of these investments in light of changing federal policies.