Trump might welcome Chinese investment, but America is wary
Chinese investment in the United States has declined sharply in recent years due to increased screening requirements
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[WASHINGTON] A hallmark of President Donald Trump’s second term has been his penchant for negotiating economic deals with countries that pledge to invest trillions of dollars in the United States.
“It’s now pouring in from all parts of the world,” Trump said during a speech last fall in which he boasted of nearly US$20 trillion of foreign investment.
The meetings this week between Trump and China’s leader, Xi Jinping, in Beijing are expected to include talks over purchases of American farm products and planes and the possibility of expanding access for American companies into China’s vast consumer market.
There has also been speculation that Trump and his advisers are seeking a major investment from China. But such a pledge could be complicated by deep distrust in the United States toward Chinese firms, which many workers blame for the hollowing out of American manufacturing.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent acknowledged the challenge in an interview on CNBC on Thursday, explaining that the United States and China were working to develop an investment board that would determine what sectors were acceptable for Chinese investment.
That would essentially provide China with guidance on how to invest in the United States without its transactions being blocked by the Committee on Foreign Investment, an interagency group that reviews foreign investment and is led by Bessent.
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“Look, there are plenty of things that the Chinese could invest in in the US,” said Bessent, who is in Beijing with Trump.
Chinese investment in the United States has declined sharply in recent years amid tougher investment screening standards nationally and at the state level.
That sentiment could ultimately clash with Trump’s transactional instincts and his desire to return home with a big-ticket win.
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“If Trump were to be committed to a major investment deal with China, there’s still a challenge of implementation,” said Kyle Jaros, an expert on US-China ties at the University of Notre Dame. “It would take real follow-through to overcome a lot of the political and regulatory barriers that are in place right now.”
According to a report published last month by the research firm Rhodium Group, less than US$3 billion of Chinese investment in the United States was announced in 2025. That was the lowest on record, with investment peaking at around US$45 billion in 2016.
The United States has imposed tight restrictions on Chinese investment out of national security concerns, making it difficult for Chinese firms to build factories near military facilities. Some states also have enacted restrictions on Chinese purchases of real estate and farmland.
China’s clean energy technology, such as electric vehicles and batteries, has also faced challenges in the United States because of political backlash. There was a surge of Chinese investment in those sectors after clean energy and tax legislation was passed under the Biden administration in 2022, but according to Rhodium, more than half of those investments have been cancelled, paused or delayed.
A US$2.4 billion electric vehicle battery factory that the Chinese company Gotion was building in Michigan was cancelled last year after the community there protested and mounted legal challenges to stop the project.
Other types of Chinese investment have also stirred controversy. That includes the recent purchase by Nongfu Spring, a Chinese bottled water company, of a warehouse in New Hampshire that it wants to turn into a bottling facility. The purchase was reviewed last year by the state’s attorney general.
After the inquiry found that there was no wrongdoing associated with the transaction, Governor Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire issued executive orders to block China, Russia and Iran from getting access to data or purchasing land or property in the state. “Foreign adversaries like China should not be doing business in New Hampshire,” said Ayotte, a Republican.
There continues to be deep skepticism within the US automobile industry about competition from China. Last month, a group of American steel associations sent a letter to top Trump administration officials urging them to keep Chinese car manufacturers out of the United States.
“As representatives of our nation’s manufacturing sector, we urge you to ensure American competitiveness by not surrendering access to the US auto market to the Chinese Communist Party,” they wrote. “Additionally, allowing Chinese companies and Chinese autos into the US would create consequential, unacceptable national security risks.”
Agriculture also remains a contentious issue. The chair of the House select committee on China, Representative John Moolenaar, a Republican from Michigan, introduced new legislation this month that would ban China from acquiring US farmland.
“Food security is national security, and we cannot allow foreign adversaries like China to buy up American farmland near our most sensitive military and critical infrastructure sites,” Moolenaar said.
The bipartisan bill would create a requirement for the federal government to review Chinese deals involving ports and telecommunications infrastructure. It would also apply to purchases made by investors from Russia, Iran and North Korea.
Michael Pillsbury, a China scholar who has served as an outside adviser to the Trump administration, said the president’s advisers were concerned about Chinese investments in sensitive sectors such as semiconductors, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, aerospace and critical minerals. It has been a challenge, he said, to come up with a “white list” of sectors that could be considered safe.
“The red lines have moved back and forth as the nature of technology has changed,” Pillsbury said.
He added that while Trump is eager to announce a US$1 trillion Chinese investment pledge, he is mindful not to incite political backlash.
“I think there’s been an effort by the administration to avoid getting into a fight with the China hawks,” Pillsbury added.
Before Trump’s trip to China, a White House official downplayed the idea that the administration was seeking to create a new US$1 trillion Chinese investment programme.
The White House continues to be focused on pushing China to increase its purchases of American farm goods, which it boycotted for much of last year when trade tensions flared.
Despite the anticipation of a Chinese investment pledge, the details and follow-through will be important.
While Trump has said that foreign investments have topped US$20 trillion, according to the White House’s own investment tracker, US and foreign investment pledges made during Trump’s second term total US$10.6 trillion.
Foreign leaders appear to have learned that they can win favour with Trump by promising whopping investment pledges that they might not fulfill.
“The devil is in the details,” said Philip Ludvigson, a partner in King & Spalding who specialises in national security risks and foreign investment, “about not only where the investment goes but also whether it happens at all.” NYTIMES
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