Japanese billionaire Masayoshi Son pledges major US investment

Trump has indicated that when he returns to the White House he plans to use the bully pulpit to court foreign investment.

His campaign promises to slash both taxes and regulations have already boosted Wall Street and charged up big business to pursue large-scale ambitions.

Specifically, Trump has said he would cut taxes for companies that make products in the US and speed approvals for firms investing $1bn or more.

Investors expect him to green-light takeovers and pull back on enforcing antitrust laws, as well.

Still, there are concerns about Trump’s campaign promises to crack down on immigration, which could affect the workforce, and raise tariffs on imports from China, Mexico and Canada. On top of that, he has discussed rolling back manufacturing and energy incentives put in place by President Joe Biden, which some investors like.

Political leaders from both parties often promote business investments and will often take some credit when those ventures boom. President Joe Biden, for example, visited projects by companies such as chipmaker TSMC to highlight historic incentives the government approved for green energy and high-tech firms.

Monday’s event recalled pageantry familiar from Trump’s first term in office, which was punctuated by high-profile announcements of investments. Many of those planned projects had been in the works already or were hazy in their chances of becoming reality.

Those included Taiwanese semiconductor giant Foxconn’s plans to build up a technology park in Wisconsin, which Trump had boasted would become the “eighth wonder of the world”. Instead of creating more than 13,000 jobs and spending more than $10bn, the company created less than 1,000 jobs and spent around $1bn, according to CNBC.

Trump had also said, external he would save a failed car factory in Lordstown, Ohio, with an electric vehicle start-up backed by Foxconn and had celebrated promises to create a million jobs over five years made by Alibaba’s Jack Ma.

The car company – Lordstown Motors – filed for bankruptcy and reorganized to become Nu Ride Inc earlier this year.

Meanwhile, Alibaba has said it “supported” 403,000 US jobs in 2022, five years after Mr Ma made his promise.