“It's not even two years, but we have more money being spent from outside countries and companies, over $20 trillion.”

Remarks on night one of the Republican midterm convention, Dallas

His own administration's tracker stood at roughly half the figure. At the time of the convention the White House tracker put total new United States investment at $11.2 trillion, counting foreign commitments and planned spending by American companies together. Money actually spent was smaller again: the Bureau of Economic Analysis measured expenditures by foreign direct investors at $232.2 billion for all of 2025. He also said the figure could reach $25 trillion when the two-year number came out.

Even the official tally is generous. Peterson Institute analysts found the Gulf state pledges within it, nearly $4 trillion, strain credibility. Foreign direct investment did rise sharply, up 49.5 percent in 2025 from the year before, which supports a surge but not the figure. His phrasing attributes the whole figure to outside countries and companies, while the tracker he is drawing on includes domestic corporate plans.