	Recent Investments

The United States occupies a unique position in the global economy as the largest investor and the largest recipient of foreign direct investment (FDI). A sharp drop in USDIA that occurred in 2005 reflects actions by U.S. parent firms to reduce the amount of reinvested earnings going to their foreign affiliates for distribution to the U.S. parent firms in order to take advantage of one-time tax provisions in the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 ( P.L. About 71% of the accumulated U.S. foreign direct investment is concentrated in high-income developed countries that are members of the OECD: investments in Europe alone account for over half of all U.S. direct investment abroad, or $2.9 trillion. U.S. They argue that such shifts reduce employment in the United States and increase imports, thereby negatively affecting U.S. employment, the trade deficit, and economic growth. U.S. multinational corporations (MNCs) rank among the largest U.S. firms. As a result, most data on the activity of U.S. firms shifting plants or jobs abroad are anecdotal. These questions seem pertinent since American multinational corporations lost shares of U.S. GDP over the last decade and their domestic employment had declined until the mid-1990s. Increased economic activity abroad relative to that in the United States increased overseas affiliate employment in some industries, including manufacturing. Some observers believe U.S. direct investment abroad is harmful to U.S. workers because it shifts jobs abroad. In the 114 th and 115 th Congresses, Members of Congress expressed concerns about U.S. direct investment abroad through measures that would offer certain tax advantages to U.S. firms that shifted parts of their operations back to the United States and through measures that are directed at curbing tax havens and tax inversions and other practices that shift taxes from the United States to foreign locations.
The United States is the largest direct investor abroad and the largest recipient of foreign direct investment in the world. For some Americans, the national gains attributed to investing overseas are offset by such perceived losses as offshoring facilities, displacing U.S. workers, and lowering wages. Some observers believe U.S. firms invest abroad to avoid U.S. labor unions or high U.S. wages, but 74% of the accumulated U.S. foreign direct investment is concentrated in high-income developed countries. In recent years, the share of investment going to developing countries has fallen. Most economists argue that there is no conclusive evidence that direct investment abroad as a whole leads to fewer jobs or lower incomes overall for Americans. Instead, they argue that the majority of jobs lost among U.S. manufacturing firms over the past decade reflect a broad restructuring of U.S. manufacturing industries responding primarily to domestic economic forces.
In recent Congresses, Members have introduced a number of measures that would affect U.S. multinational companies in their foreign investment activities. In the 115th Congress, H.R. 685 and S. 247 (Bring Jobs Home Act) would provide certain tax exemptions to U.S. multinational firms to induce them to redirect economic activity from a foreign subsidiary to a domestic U.S. operation. In the 114th Congress, Members also introduced similar measures, including H.R. 297, the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act of 2015, introduced by Representative Lloyd Doggett on January 13, 2015, and companion measure S. 174, introduced by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse; and H.R. 415, the Stop Corporate Inversions Act of 2015, introduced by Representative Sander Levin on January 20, 2015, and companion measure S. 198, introduced by Senator Richard Durbin. While H.R. 415 and S. 198 are directed at tax inversions, H.R. 297 and S. 174 address a number of tax and financial issues relative to U.S. multinational firms, including the use of foreign tax havens to evade U.S. taxes; money laundering; corporate offshore tax avoidance; and corporate tax inversions.