Leavitt Belies Trump’s $17 Trillion Investment Boast

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has touted record investments pouring into the U.S. — but contradicted President Donald Trump’s own figures, Rachel Cohen reported for NJ.com

The White House website itself showed U.S. and foreign investments at only $8.8 trillion since Trump took office. (Photo: Karoline Leavitt Facebook)

At her press briefing, Leavitt claimed Trump has secured “nearly $9 trillion” in investment since the start of his second term — “nearly nine times more” than under former President Joe Biden.

“We expect that number to be upwards of $15 trillion very soon,” she said, citing Trump’s “mission to restore America as the manufacturing superpower of the world.”

But Trump claimed earlier that he had delivered “$17 trillion” in investments in just eight months — a number that exceeds half of U.S. GDP, which stood at just over $30 trillion as of late August.

Earlier in the month, Trump also said the U.S. was taking in “almost $17 trillion of investment” from foreign countries — nearly equal to China’s entire 2024 GDP of $18.7 trillion.

The administration, for instance, highlighted a $1.5 billion investment from Corning for a solar plant in Michigan. But a Corning official told CBS News that $900 million of that funding had already been pledged under Biden.

The White House website itself showed U.S. and foreign investments at only $8.8 trillion since Trump took office — and many of those predated his presidency, as CBS previously reported.

In short, Trump inflated the numbers.