America First? How Do We Know If President Trump Fulfills His Promise?

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Donald Trump wants American corporations to invest in America, and he’s promised to enact policies that will make America First. So how do we measure whether he’s successful? I don’t know, but I’ll toss out a possible metric:

During the past eight years, US corporations invested about $300 billion overseas each year. If Trump is successful, this number should go down.

Or, perhaps some ratio would be a better measure: foreign investment as a percent of total investment. Or maybe something entirely different. In fact, I’m mostly publishing this as a provocation: if this is the wrong measure, what’s the right one? What’s the best way of knowing if US corporations start to direct more of their investment dollars into domestic expansion instead of building or buying overseas? Any trade economists want to weigh in on this?

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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