WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 The economic boom promised by President Donald Trump centers on a single number: $17 trillion.<\/p>\n
That’s the sum of new investments that Trump claims to have generated with his tariffs<\/a>, income tax cuts and aggressive salesmanship<\/a> of CEOs, financiers, tech titans, prime ministers<\/a>, presidents and other rulers. The $17 trillion is supposed to fund new factories, new technologies, more jobs, higher incomes and faster economic growth.<\/p>\n \u201cUnder eight months of Trump, we\u2019ve already secured commitments of $17 trillion coming in,\u201d the president said in a speech last month. \u201cThere\u2019s never been any country that\u2019s done anything like that.\u201d<\/p>\n But based on statements from various companies, foreign countries and the White House’s own website, that figure appears to be exaggerated, highly speculative and far higher than the actual sum. The White House website<\/a> lists total investments at $8.8 trillion, though that figure appears to be padded with some investment commitments made during Joe Biden’s presidency.<\/p>\n The White House didn’t lay out the math after multiple requests as to how Trump calculated $17 trillion in investment commitments. But the issue goes beyond Trump’s hyperbolic talk to his belief that the brute force of tariffs and shaming of companies can deliver economic results, a strategy that could go sideways for him politically if the tough talk fails to translate into more jobs and higher incomes.<\/p>\n Just 37% of U.S. adults approve of Trump’s handling of the economy, according to a September poll<\/a> by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs. That’s down from a peak of 56% in early 2020 during Trump’s first term \u2014 a memory he relied upon when courting voters in last year’s election.<\/p>\n Adam Posen, president of the Peterson Institute of International Economics, said the public commitments announced by Trump do represent a \u201cmeaningful increase\u201d \u2014 but one that amounts to hundreds of billions of dollars, not trillions. Even then, that comes with long-term costs as countries might be less inclined to invest with the U.S. after being threatened to do so.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is a national security mistake because you\u2019re turning allies into colonies of a sort \u2014 you\u2019re forcibly extracting from them things that they don\u2019t see as entirely in their interest,\u201d Posen said. \u201cTwisting the arms of governments to then twist the arms of their own businesses is not going to get you the payoff you want.\u201d<\/p>\n The Trump administration is betting that tariffs are an effective tool to prod other countries and international companies to invest in the United States, a big stick that other administrations failed to wield. Trump’s pitch to voters is that he will play a role in directly managing the investment commitments made by foreign countries \u2014 and that the allocation of that money starting next year will revive what has been a flagging job market.<\/p>\n \u201cThe difference between hypothetical investments and ground being broken on new factories and facilities is good leadership and sound policy,” said White House spokesman Kush Desai.<\/p>\n The White House said that Japan will invest $1 trillion, largely at Trump’s direction. The European Union will commit $600 billion. The United Arab Emirates made commitments of $1.4 trillion over 10 years. Qatar pledged $1.2 trillion. Saudi Arabia intends to pony up $600 billion, India $500 billion and South Korea $450 billion, among others.<\/p>\n The challenge is the precise terms of those investments have yet to be fully codified and released to the public, and some numbers are under dispute, potentially fuzzy math or, in the case of Qatar, more than five times the annual gross domestic product of the entire country. The White House maintains that Qatar is good for the money because it produces oil.<\/p>\n