Democrats may investigate President Trump over his repeated claims that a $17 trillion flood of foreign and domestic investment has poured into the U.S. during his administration.
Trump has boasted that the supposed investment has been sparked by companies expanding operations or moving business to the U.S. after he imposed a raft of global tariffs.
“Donald Trump is living in a fantasy world,” Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, said Thursday in an interview with MeidasTouch. “If there is $17 trillion somewhere, the government doesn’t know about it. None of our committees have access to it. Treasury has no idea what the hell he’s talking about. He’s either a liar, or he’s somehow stashed away money in some magical way, and there’s even more corruption happening.”
“If this keeps going, we’re going to have to investigate where the hell those $17 trillion are,” Garcia added.
Rep. Eric Swalwell, another Democratic House member, has voiced similar criticisms.
“WHY are we in a shutdown?” he wrote on X. “Trump says the US has taken in $17 Trillion since he became president. Where is the money? Why haven’t you gotten a check?”
The White House hammered Democrats for their claims.
“This is astonishingly stupid even for a Democrat,” White House spokesman Kush Desai told The Independent. “Instead of calling on the federal government to somehow expropriate trillions in investment commitments by private companies to make and hire in America, Robert Garcia should tell Senate Democrats to just reopen the government.”
The president has said multiple times in recent days that there has been $17 trillion in investments since he took office.
“In just eight months since I took office, we have secured commitments and money already paid for $17 trillion,” Trump told the United Nations last month. “Think of it. Four years less than a trillion, eight months much more than $17 trillion is being invested in the United States. And it’s now pouring in from all parts of the world.”
“We’ve taken in almost $17 trillion of investments,” Trump said elsewhere in September. “Most of it is coming because of tariffs.”
The president’s statements appear to nearly double the White House estimate on such deals, which claims $8.8 trillion in investments and commitments under Trump.
The Trump administration’s tariffs, which have netted the U.S. upwards of $158 billion since Trump took office, are expected to raise $2.3 trillion in revenue over the next decade, and $17 trillion is more than double the entire GDP of the U.S. economy.
