We know you have heard this refrain before, but certainty matters in business. At its most basic level, an investment decision turns on certainty — the surest path to the lowest risk and the highest potential return. Incentive packages, permitting timelines and tariff levels all shape project economics. But before any project receives the green light, investors need confidence that the ground rules will not shift after the capital is committed.

That confidence has been tested in the past year as rapidly changing U.S. trade policies and broader geopolitical unrest have complicated investment decisions in C-suites across the globe. A foreign company can build a supply chain around a 30 percent tariff. It can price it, hedge it and pass it through. What it cannot confidently build is a supply chain around a tariff that might be 30 percent today and something else entirely by the time the equipment arrives. Although based on the premise of encouraging a resurgence of manufacturing in America, the uncertainty resulting from America’s current trade policy is limiting economic momentum.

Consider the first half of 2026, when the governing legal and policy framework shifted without warning, sometimes within hours and sometimes within weeks:

On Feb. 20, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling in Learning Resources Inc. v. Trump concluded that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not authorize a president to unilaterally impose tariffs, thereby invalidating a wide range of tariffs levied by the Trump administration in reliance on that authority. Uncertainty.

The United States on Friday imposed new tariffs, based on a 1930’s era law, of 10 percent and 12.5 percent on goods from 60 trading partners, including the EU and China. The administration alleges those countries failed to curb imports made by forced labor, just as a temporary 10 percent global tariff expired.

That same day, the administration announced a temporary 10 percent global tariff under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, which took effect four days later. Uncertainty.

Within two weeks, two dozen U.S. states and two private importers sued in the U.S. Court of International Trade to strike down the new tariff. Uncertainty.

In May, the court agreed, ruling the 10 percent global tariff unlawful, but only as to one state and the two private importers, leaving everyone else still paying the tariff while the government appealed. The next day, the administration appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and on May 12, 2026, the Federal Circuit granted a temporary administrative stay of the Court of International Trade’s ruling. Uncertainty.

These events of 2026 are a continuation of the policy whiplash that began with the April 2025 “Liberation Day” tariffs and has continued for more than a year. The International Chamber of Commerce, working with Oxford Economics, put a number on the economic loss. Its analysis estimated that policy uncertainty reduced business investment across 10 major economies by $202 billion in 2025, including the United States. The United States accounted for an estimated $74 billion of that total — the largest nominal loss among the economies studied — even as an AI-driven investment boom partly masked the broader drag on investment. The problem is not whether a tariff is high or low. It is whether a company can rely on the rate long enough to make and execute a multiyear capital plan.

At the same time, international interest in the U.S. market remains strong. The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis reports that new greenfield investment expenditures reached $13.8 billion in 2025, led by transportation and warehousing at $3.6 billion, computer and electronic product manufacturing at $2 billion, and chemicals at $1.8 billion, with Asia-Pacific investors contributing the largest share and Louisiana, Arizona and Texas the top state destinations.

International companies veer toward regions with strong ecosystems. Camoin Associates counted 463 foreign direct investment projects announced between October and December 2025 alone, representing $40.6 billion in capital investment. The Global Business Alliance’s preliminary first-quarter 2026 data shows the digital economy carrying the load, with data centers accounting for one-fifth of all announced greenfield project value and semiconductor investment surging 35 percent. It also confirms that the United States continues to lead as the largest cumulative market for international capital, ranking No. 1 for the 14th consecutive year in the Kearney FDI Confidence Index.

The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development’s World Investment Report 2026 tells the same story: The U.S. remained the top foreign direct investment destination worldwide, although inflows fell from 2024. All of this shows that demand for America has not disappeared but has instead gone dormant, waiting for the rules to hold still.

There is also a significant focus on the acquisition of existing U.S.-based enterprises, viewed as an easier path and safer bet for establishing a foothold in the U.S. market. This instinct to buy an existing platform rather than build a new one from the ground up is not new, but the increased use of this approach is a symptom of policy uncertainty. Acquisitions close on a known set of facts, while greenfield projects bet on facts that do not yet exist. And the trade architecture that would normally anchor those long-term bets is itself now subject to annual review.

On July 1, 2026, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer announced that the United States had not agreed to renew the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement in its current form. The agreement remains in effect, but the parties will return to annual joint reviews unless they subsequently agree to renew it.

The posture throws additional uncertainty into the mix for international companies looking to invest in North America, not just for individual manufacturing projects but also for the vast existing supply chains needed to provide them with components and materials that currently depend on the cross-border flows made possible by the agreement. Rather than providing a renewed long-term framework on which companies can rely, the USMCA has entered a period of annual review, diminishing the certainty companies need to make long-term investments in North American factories, equipment and supply chains.

A Rhodium Group analyst told The New York Times that the administration’s foreign policy is raising “fundamental doubts about the long-term trustworthiness of the U.S.,” as reported by Semafor. Continued investment in capital-intensive sectors such as semiconductors, energy and data centers has continued to flow despite heavy policy fluctuation. But that reflects targeted incentives overriding uncertainty in a handful of strategically favored industries, not proof that uncertainty is costless. For every project that receives a subsidy, incentive or tariff shield, others quietly get shelved or redirected, which is exactly what the International Chamber of Commerce attempted to measure as a $202 billion cost.

In our site selection work, foreign direct investment inquiries and desktop analyses remain active, but too few projects are advancing to the coveted next stage: on-the-ground visits to communities with foreign company representatives in tow.

The encouraging takeaway is that international companies continue to evaluate the U.S. market even while policy uncertainty delays commitment. In turn, this planning lull gives local, regional and state economic development organizations, along with their elected officials, the opportunity to remove uncertainties and position their communities for the coming wave of international interest in the U.S.

This includes documenting utility capacity and delivery timelines; completing environmental, geotechnical, title, zoning and permitting work; mapping local supply chains and vendor networks; strengthening the workforce pipeline; and developing clear permitting approval pathways.

This period also represents an opportunity to reevaluate stale incentive programs and overly rigid incentive-matrix thresholds that can come across as disinterest. For foreign direct investment projects especially, it is important to designate a single project lead and build a dedicated team around that person to support the unique needs and information-gathering demands of international companies. Importantly, however, none of this groundwork does much good if it stays internal, filed away rather than translated into the kind of proactive, targeted outreach that puts a community on a site selector’s shortlist.

Meanwhile, how a community treats existing foreign investors during this period of volatility will shape its reputation long after the current turmoil passes. Economic development organizations and elected officials that check in proactively, help existing foreign-owned employers navigate tariff exposure and solve problems quickly send a clear signal to other companies weighing a U.S. location: This community will be the anchor in the storm, not another source of uncertainty.

Foreign companies talk to each other, and a community known for standing by its existing investors during uncertainty will be the first call when those companies, or their peers, are ready to expand. Furthermore, the vendor-mapping work done during the current planning lull can be leveraged to help existing foreign employers identify domestic sourcing alternatives when cross-border costs or delays spike, reinforcing the same anchor-in-the-storm reputation with companies already on the ground.

As trade policy becomes more predictable, whether by court order, statute or simple political fatigue, that $202 billion in deferred global investment will not simultaneously diffuse. Projects under evaluation will first move to states and communities that can answer difficult questions quickly, document those answers and offer the clearest path from desktop analysis to construction.

Federal policy may determine when the market moves, but local readiness will help determine where a project lands.