The eye-popping numbers behind America’s investment boom
Sara Eisen is a CNBC anchor and host of “Squawk on the Street” and “Money Movers.”
This week, world leaders are descending on Washington for the semiannual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. Inevitably, many finance chiefs will make noise about tariffs, policy uncertainty, rising debt levels and job market threats related to artificial intelligence — all valid concerns.
But beneath the headlines, the amount of money flowing through the United States from inside and outside the country is the envy of the world.
Though many recent Trump administration policies and economic measures have become partisan issues, the facts are clear: We’re experiencing an American investment boom that’s substantive, probably durable and unlike anything the country has experienced in a generation.
In the past few months alone, Pfizer said it will invest $70 billion in U.S. manufacturing, reporting indicated Jeep-owner Stellantis plans to invest $10 billion in its U.S. supply chain, South Korea’s Hyundai boosted its spending in the U.S. to $26 billion, and IBM committed $150 billion to advance American innovation. The list goes on, and you should expect it to continue.
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Skeptics say these are “empty calorie” promises because they are hard to measure and companies are unaccountable for seeing them to completion. But there’s clear evidence and rationale for their substance.
The Trump administration deserves plenty of credit. Policies such as the highly controversial tariff program encourage foreign and domestic companies to build plants and manufacture products in the U.S. to avoid paying tariffs when selling to American consumers and businesses. When Taiwan Semiconductor’s chief executive announced $100 billion in domestic chip manufacturing in March, President Donald Trump, who was in attendance, remarked, “By doing it here, [the company] has no tariffs.”
The pharmaceutical industry has made some of the biggest investment announcements. Because building a factory takes years and most U.S. drugs are imported, the Trump administration has granted tariff exemptions to companies that commit to building drug-making facilities in America. Large drugmakers such as GlaxoSmithKline, Eli Lilly and Merck have announced multibillion-dollar investments in recent months.
New business-friendly tax legislation is also a factor. Companies such as Johnson & Johnson have cited lower corporate taxes and deductions on domestic R&D expenses, as well as the expansion of a manufacturing investment tax credit in what Trump called the “big, beautiful bill.” In September, Johnson & Johnson chief executive Joaquin Duato announced an additional $2 billion investment in its North Carolina facility, on top of the previously announced $55 billion it committed for U.S. operations for the next four years. “With the recent signing of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, we continue to expand our investment in the U.S. to lead the next era of health care innovation,” Duato said.
Beyond the political winds, there are solid economic reasons for companies to invest in America. We are at the forefront of the next great technology revolution — artificial intelligence. This boom is driven by fast-moving private-sector innovation, massive infrastructure spending, and world-leading models and chips. The investment is eye-popping: Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang estimated on the company’s latest earnings call that between $3 trillion to $4 trillion will be spent on AI infrastructure by the end of the decade.
America’s AI leadership is poised to continue attracting global investment, driven by our dominant tech giants and the top talent coming out of our universities. However, the trillions in spending and energy demands required to power data centers may not be sustainable.
There’s one more reason capital should continue to flow to the United States: the American consumer. We’re the world’s largest economy, with one of the highest per capita gross domestic products, and we love to spend. As Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank, told me a few months ago, “the U.S. consumer consumes,” in stark contrast to European and Chinese consumers, who are more cautious and prone to saving. Even if growth slows or unemployment rises marginally, the U.S. culture of consumption — along with a desire to circumvent tariffs — has foreign companies such as Lego and Honda announcing investments to build new U.S. factories and distribution centers.
The economic numbers look pretty good: Jobs data shows near full employment; inflation looks benign even amid tariff worries; GDP is growing, and the stock market is on a roll. But one of the most overlooked data points is the remarkable rise of capital expenditures, which refers to all of the investment companies are spending on their businesses. Capital expenditures grew 14.8 percent in the first half of 2025 compared with the same period in 2024, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the biggest non-pandemic gain since 2011. A broader measure of spending, which includes intellectual property such as software and research and development, is up 11.9 percent this year from same time frame in 2024.
Though the U.S. was attracting global capital last year under President Joe Biden, what we’re experiencing now is supercharged. Considering the powerful drivers and Trump administration policies in place, America is uniquely positioned as a destination for capital for years to come.