Trump’s investment claims – do tariffs strengthen the US economy?

US President Donald Trump may have called his rates his favorite word in the dictionary. But as far as the craze is concerned, business investment should be close.

As of last month, he said that over $ 12 trillion (8.8TN) had been “practically engaged” on his watch. “No one has ever seen the numbers like us,” he said, lending his agenda on tariffs, reducing taxes and deregulation to make the difference.

If true, the figure would really be amazing, potentially triple approximately 4TN in the gross private investment that the United States reported last year.

So the sudden brilliance of business costs is the basis of a new gold economic era, as Trump says, or is it all a theater?

First things first: it is early in Trump’s term that there are clear data on evaluating his claims. The US government publishes business investment statistics only every three months.

January to March, which reflect two months from Trump’s term, show a strong leap in business investment, albeit one that analysts said is partly due to the data distorted by a more Boeing blow.

Other anecdotal and exploration evidence shows that Trump’s impact on investment is far more gradual than he claims.

“At this point, there is almost no data and almost all the information we have is probably about investment projects that were planned and ordered last year,” says economist Nick Bloom, a professor at Stanford University, whose work is looking at the impact of uncertainty on business investment.

“My assumption is that investment in business is decreasing a little, not mass … mainly because uncertainty is quite high and that will pause it.”

The Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche, which has announced plans to invest $ 50 billion in the United States in five years in April, is a good example.

Some of the projects included in the amount were already in the work.

The executives also warned that some of Trump’s ideas – a more special proposal for major drug prices – can impede his plans.

“The pharmaceutical industry will have to review its costs, including investment,” the company said.

Trump usually makes his case to show investment promises made by high -profile companies such as Apple and Hyundai.

The White House keeps a running From these messages, but in early June, he made the common new investments with approximately 5.3 TTN – less than half of the Trump cited.

Even this figure is inflated.

Approximately one -third of 62 investments in the list include plans that were at least partly in the work before Trump took office. For example:

• Stellantis, on the $ 5 billion plan list to reopen a factory in Belvidere, Illinois, initially made this promise in 2023.

• Other commitments include items that are not at all considered investment – such as A $ 500 billion cost of Apple’s $ 500 billionwhich includes taxes and salaries paid to workers who are already in the company.

In fact, since mid-May, the new investment resulting from the messages is likely to be more close to $ 134 billion, according to Goldman Sachs analysis.

This amount has only contracted to $ 30 billion, not involving investments, supported by foreign governments, after researchers have joined at risk that some projects may not be able to realize or have happened anyway.

“Although it is not insignificant economic, such increases will reach the latest titles,” they wrote.

When pressed on the numbers, the White House spokesman Kush Deza rejected fears that the administration’s allegations did not correspond to reality.

“The Trump administration uses a multifaceted approach to put investment in the United States … And no amount of meaningless nitration and branching of the hair can refute that it is paid,” he said in a statement that many companies have explicitly credit Trump and his policies for shaping their plans.

The BBC has addressed more than two dozen investment companies in the White House list.

Many did not respond or referred to previous statements.

Others have acknowledged that work on some of their projects is in advance with the current administration.

Exaggeration from politicians and companies is hardly unexpected.

But the Trump administration’s desire to intervene radically in the economy, with tariffs and other changes, gave the companies to pump their plans in ways that flatter the president, says Martin Chorzamp, a senior associate at the Institute of International Economics in Peteresen.

“A company that makes a message is a way to obtain some current benefits without necessarily being kept to these (promise costs) if the situation changes,” he says. “There is a strong incentive companies to provide the largest number as possible.”

This does not mean that Trump’s policies do not change.

The tariff threats “were definitely a catalyst” for pharmaceutical companies to plan more production in the United States, a key source of sector profits, says Stephen Farrelli, a global leading role in Pharmaceutical and Health at Ing.

But, he adds, there are restrictions on what threats can commit.

Pharmaceutical investments develop over time – a decade in some cases – in a sector that was ready for growth anyway.

And they came from branded drug companies – not more cheaper, generic drugs that many Americans rely on and are made in China and India.

Farreli also warned that investments in the sector may be at risk in the long run, given the uncertainty about the government’s approach to tariffs, pricing drugs and research.

Overall, many analysts expect investment growth to slow down in the United States this year due to the uncertainty of politics.

Economist German Gutierrez at the University of Washington says Trump is right to want to increase investments in the United States, but believes that his emphasis on global competition is wrongly diagnosed with the problem.

His own work found that the decline in investment was partly due to the consolidation of the industry. Now several large companies are dominated by the sectors, there is a slightest incentive to invest in order to compete.

In addition, the types of investment companies usually make more expensive items such as software, not machines and factories.

Tariffs, says Prof. Gutierrez, is unlikely to deal with these problems.

“The way it is done and the type of tools they use are not the best way to achieve this goal. It just takes a lot more to achieve this,” he says.