Trump says he’s already scored more business deals than Biden. That’s false.

[Tin tức]

The White House is comparing apples and oranges.

Analysis by Glenn Kessler

“In two months, there has been more Private Investment spoken for, and/or committed to, than in four years of the Sleepy Joe Biden Administration — A fact that the Fake News hates talking about!”

— President Donald Trump, in a social media post, March 31

Trump often trumpets his achievements, real or otherwise, but this claim was so astonishing that we had to check it out. Is it possible that companies have committed more money in the first two months of the Trump administration than during the entire Biden administration? After all, Joe Biden prided himself on focusing relentlessly on bringing manufacturing back to the United States.

This was not just another middle-of-the-day musing by the president. There are some real numbers attached to this claim — but it’s a matter of comparing apples and oranges. Or, to use another cliché, the president is counting his chickens before they have hatched.

The Facts

A White House official explained Trump’s math and provided a spreadsheet and links to corporate announcements. According to the White House tally, companies have announced more than $1.5 trillion in investments since Trump took office. About two-thirds of that total comes from just two announcements — Apple ($500 billion over four years) and an AI project called Stargate led by SoftBank, ChatGPT and Oracle (“as much as $500 billion”).

As for Biden, the official pointed to a detailed tally on the archived Biden White House website, Investing in America, that allows you to download a spreadsheet with every manufacturing deal claimed under Biden. Those announcements, many in green energy or semiconductors, add up to $1 trillion.

Score one for Trump? Not yet.

The difference is that the Trump deals are just announcements for future investments — and the Biden tally lists local announcements of a factory or facility being planned. There’s often a gap between the announcement and the groundbreaking.

For instance, shortly after Biden became president, Apple announced it would invest $430 billion over five years in the United States, including building a North Carolina campus. But in 2024, Apple, like many tech companies, scaled back expansion of its commercial real estate footprint and slowed its plans for a North Carolina facility. Despite Apple’s 2021 announcement, which was nearly as large as the one touted by Trump, the Biden tally does not include any factory or facility built by Apple.

Eli Lilly is on Trump’s list as having committed $27 billion in investments. But that’s on top of an earlier commitment. In 2020, Eli Lilly announced it would spend $23 billion over four years, and the Biden spreadsheet records a total of $18.5 billion spent to build four manufacturing plants.

Indeed, investments like this don’t happen overnight. The Stargate AI deal had been under discussion for more than a year. Biden signed a law to encourage semiconductor investment, and now Trump is reaping the benefits, just as Biden claimed credit for Eli Lilly factories built on his watch but announced in Trump’s first term. But Stargate, for now, really should only count as $100 billion, as that’s the initial investment. The $500 billion number is aspirational. We won’t really know the true value until Trump’s term is completed.

In Trump’s first term, he grandly announced he had scored more than $350 billion of business deals during a trip to Saudi Arabia — which he later claimed would create more than 500,000 jobs. (This was his excuse for not punishing the kingdom for ordering the murder of Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi.) Not only were those jobs numbers wildly inflated, it turned out most of the jobs that would be created were in Saudi Arabia — not the United States.

After a phone call with Trump earlier this year, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince said the country would invest $600 billion in the United States. The contours of the investment are still vague, but that has not stopped Trump from touting it. (This announcement was not part of the White House tally.)

The flimsy nature of Trump’s claim of besting Biden is best illustrated by these numbers: The Trump spreadsheet lists 26 announced deals, while the Biden spreadsheet contains more than 675 construction projects.

The Pinocchio Test

It’s too early for Trump to make these comparisons to Biden. Two-thirds of his claim depends on just two announcements. He may well have bragging rights on luring investment when his term is completed. If so, we’ll happily update this fact check. But for now, his claim that he’s scored more deals in two months than Biden in four years is bunk. He earns Four Pinocchios.

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