Fact check: Is Trump right that Sweden is the 8th largest investor in the U.S.?
At a news conference with Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven, President Trump called Sweden one of America's "oldest and closest partners," and praised it as one of the largest investors in the U.S., specifically, the eighth largest:
As far as our relationship with Sweden, it's going to be only stronger, only better, both in a military sense, in a trading sense, in an economic sense. You know, Sweden is I think the eighth-largest investor in the United States, and they like me very much because the market is up almost 40 percent since Election Day, so I made a lot of these business geniuses look even better, so they like Trump, but, you know, it's been up very substantially, but I believe Sweden is about the eighth-largest investor in the United States, and that's quite an achievement.
But was he right? In fact, according to the State Department, "Sweden is the 15th largest investor in the U.S.," not the eighth. That figure is based off data from the Department of Commerce's Bureau of Economic Analysis. However, the State Department's fact sheet goes on to point out that the country is also "one of the largest investors on a per capita basis." Swedish foreign direct investment "amounts to roughly $46.9 billion and creates approximately 210,600 jobs," the site says.
Mr. Trump is right that the U.S. relationship goes back a long way -- Sweden recognized U.S. independence in 1783, and the first Swedish immigrants landed in Delaware in 1638, the State Department also points out.
