{"id":27916,"date":"2026-08-05T00:36:24","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T19:36:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=27916"},"modified":"2026-08-05T00:36:24","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T19:36:24","slug":"one-year-later-some-of-trumps-trade-deals-are-real-others-not-so-much","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=27916","title":{"rendered":"One Year Later, Some of Trump\u2019s Trade Deals Are Real. Others, Not So Much."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"article-content\">\n<p>During a Cabinet meeting at Camp David on Friday, President Donald Trump touted growing \u201cinvestment\u201d into the U.S. since he took office.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s never been anything like it from the standpoint of investment into our country,\u201d Trump told reporters and members of his administration. \u201cIt\u2019s five to six times higher than anybody has ever seen, than any other country, not just us, has ever had.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Part of a diatribe about the economy which included a segment about his tariffs, the president was likely referring at least in part to the several trillions of dollars in foreign investment commitments his White House announced beginning last year after Trump leveraged threats of historically high tariffs as a bargaining chip with various countries. (The president employed equally aggressive tactics to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.marketplace.org\/story\/2025\/08\/11\/why-trumps-tech-dealmaking-is-unprecedented\" target=\"_blank\">elicit financial commitments<\/a> and expensive gifts from U.S. companies including tech giants <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wjhl.com\/news\/national\/ap-trump-will-highlight-apples-plans-to-invest-100-billion-more-in-us-raising-total-to-600-billion\/\" target=\"_blank\">Apple<\/a> and Nvidia.) There\u2019s even a whole page on the White House website <a href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/investments\/\" target=\"_blank\">titled, simply, \u201cInvestments,\u201d<\/a> touting $10.7 billion in U.S. and foreign investment commitments beneath pulsating text that reads \u201cThe Trump Effect.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The webpage frames the numbers as if they\u2019re dollars already spent. But in many cases, they aren\u2019t.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Trump approach remains to be seen,\u201d Ryan Mulholland, a senior international economic policy fellow at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank, told TPM.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>A year ago, international trade experts and economists <a href=\"https:\/\/talkingpointsmemo.com\/news\/experts-say-foreign-governments-are-playing-trump-on-tariffs\" target=\"_blank\">told TPM that many foreign governments were playing Trump<\/a>. Today, some investment agreements are already underway, while others have virtually no mechanism to be executed at all. It remains to be seen whether Trump\u2019s stick approach to foreign economic relations will send real dollars flowing to U.S. companies and workers \u2014 or whether it\u2019s just one more way for Trump to enrich himself, his family and companies allied with the president.<\/p>\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h4-bfc7970a-099d-468e-973a-50cb440a8022\"><strong>\u2018<\/strong>Where do these deals leave us?<strong>\u2019<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p>New money coming from foreign governments to the U.S. is up compared to last year, according to data from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bea.gov\/data\/intl-trade-investment\/new-foreign-direct-investment-united-states\" target=\"_blank\">Bureau of Economic Analysis<\/a>. And commitments for 2026 made in 2025 are much higher than those made in 2024. But they\u2019re not the highest in history. New foreign investment commitments were <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bea.gov\/news\/2023\/new-foreign-direct-investment-united-states-2022\" target=\"_blank\">nearly $20 billion higher<\/a> under former President Joe Biden in 2022. And their impact on U.S. prosperity is much more of a mixed bag.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s no indication that new foreign investment in the U.S. stems from Trump\u2019s trade deals, according to available federal data. And most deal-related boosts won\u2019t show up in the most recent figures from the BEA. What is apparent in the data, though, are high-tech investments into the AI industry \u2014 new investments that are separate from Trump\u2019s trade policy agreements, a late June <a href=\"https:\/\/www.federalreserve.gov\/econres\/notes\/feds-notes\/recent-developments-in-foreign-direct-investment-into-the-u-s-20260626.html\" target=\"_blank\">research paper<\/a> from the Federal Reserve showed.<\/p>\n<p>The economic hallmark of Trump\u2019s second presidential term are his tariffs, which his administration has said are aimed at correcting long-running imbalances between the U.S. and its trading partners. One of his attempts at correction \u2014 to levy blanket tariffs using a 1970s era law \u2014 was <a href=\"https:\/\/talkingpointsmemo.com\/news\/scotus-blocks-trumps-ieepa-tariffs-in-6-3-decision\" target=\"_blank\">struck down by the Supreme Court<\/a>. A second tariff scheme using a different provision was <a href=\"https:\/\/talkingpointsmemo.com\/news\/court-permanently-blocks-trumps-newest-tariffs-orders-more-tariff-refunds\" target=\"_blank\">blocked<\/a> by a lower court, too. Small businesses are suing Trump right now to overturn his administration\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/talkingpointsmemo.com\/news\/trumps-new-forced-labor-tariffs-were-set-under-sham-pretenses\" target=\"_blank\">third attempt<\/a> at reordering global trade through tariffs, which SCOTUS ruled were a tax on the American people. All the while, Trump and his officials are hammering home the idea that the president\u2019s savvy salesmanship has saved a failing American economy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think other countries have largely figured out that they can give Trump a sort of headline that he likes, and in exchange win all of the details of a trade deal,\u201d Mulholland said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhere do these deals leave us? Are we in a better position to create prosperity for everyday people?\u2029Are we in a position to work with our partners and allies around the world to solve the challenges that impact people\u2019s lives? I think on both of those scores,\u201d Mulholland continued, \u201cTrump\u2019s very sort of short-term, zero sum kind of view of trade relationships has hurt us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Trump is prepared to act if foreign governments fail to uphold their agreement terms, White House spokesman Kush Desai told TPM in an email. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cPresident Trump means what he says, and he has never hesitated to leverage the might of the American economy to hold trading partners accountable to their agreed-upon commitments,\u201d Desai said.<\/p>\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h4-22be6844-8146-441b-b258-4e53c6b06bae\"><strong>Meeting Trade Commitments Will Prove \u2018Very Difficult\u2019 for Most Countries<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p>Japan agreed to invest $550 billion in U.S. manufacturing sectors including semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, and the shipbuilding industry with special financing provisions that mean Japan will pay for the projects at little cost to America. That deal, along with commitments on U.S. tech and manufacturing investments from Taiwan and shipbuilding from South Korea, has progressed the most.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI guess the only place where we\u2019ve seen some action is really on Japan\u2019s commitments. The conditions there [are] if the project is approved, the Japanese government is obligated to provide financing for it,\u201d Greg Auclair, a statistician and researcher at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, told TPM. \u201cThat\u2019s a very small list right now.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Already, Japan and Taiwan have poured about $110 billion into the U.S., Auclair said,\u00a0 though he noted that opaque commitment terms and novel financing mechanisms make it harder to know whether those investments are one-to-one correlations with the trade deals.<\/p>\n<p>Auclair co-published a report suggesting foreign governments will have a hard time financing their commitments to the U.S.Auclair showed that even if some countries with commitments to Trump tap significant portions of their investment capacities and turn them toward the U.S., those nations would still struggle to fulfill their pledges over a 10-year timeline.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t think they will all be fulfilled,\u201d Auclair\u2019s co-author Adnan Mazarei <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/newsletters\/morning-money\/2026\/01\/27\/the-fuzzy-math-on-trumps-investment-pledges-00748747\" target=\"_blank\">told Politico<\/a> in January.<\/p>\n<p>Countries would essentially have to rob Peter to pay Paul \u2014 reallocating import schema to benefit the U.S. at the expense of other trading partners, selling foreign assets to purchase more American ones, and bumping up against their own debt capacities.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPutting everything together,\u201d Auclair told TPM, \u201cit would be possible for them to meet the pledges but very difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>An update to Auclair\u2019s January report will show that the first year of Trump\u2019s presidency saw foreign investment in the U.S. align with the long-run average, he said, pushing back on Trump\u2019s narrative of historic inflows of foreign cash.<\/p>\n<p>In some cases, Trump\u2019s overbearing tactics have pushed countries to take the opposite tack, reducing exposure to the U.S. economy while creating historic trade agreements with other countries.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The European Union in January closed a deal with several South American countries that\u2019d been more than two decades in the making. The bloc of 27 European countries also closed a \u201clandmark\u201d free trade deal with India in January to protect against growing U.S. trade volatility. A bloc of South American countries are now in talks with Japan, and Canada is diversifying its economy away from the U.S. as evidenced by a recent electric vehicle deal with China.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo there are a lot of instances where governments are seeking to reduce their exposure to the United States, and that is a direct result of Trump\u2019s belligerence on the world stage,\u201d Mulholland said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Future U.S. presidential administrations, he added, will be limited as a result.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c[Other countries\u2019] ability to negotiate kind of new things with the United States,\u201d Mulholland said, \u201cis going to be hamstrung by commitments that they\u2019ve already made to each other in the deals they did to reduce their exposure to the Trump administration.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>This article has been updated to include a statement from the White House.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\n    window.fbAsyncInit = function() {\n      FB.init({\n        appId: \"101800829865996\",\n        xfbml: true,\n        version: ' v2.6'\n      });\n      window.fbAsyncInit.__didInit = true;\n    };\n    (function(d, s, id) {\n      var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];\n      if (d.getElementById(id)) {\n        return;\n      }\n      js = d.createElement(s);\n      js.id = id;\n      js.src = \"https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/sdk.js\";\n      fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);\n    }(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));\n  <\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>During a Cabinet meeting at Camp David on Friday, President Donald Trump touted growing \u201cinvestment\u201d into the U.S. since he took office. \u201cThere\u2019s never been anything like it from the standpoint of investment into our country,\u201d Trump told reporters and members of his administration. \u201cIt\u2019s five to six times higher than anybody has ever seen,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27917,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/talkingpointsmemo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GettyImages-2267396662.jpg?w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-political-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27916\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}