New York Times columnist David Brooks told PBS NewsHour on Friday that his friends in the business community have told him the U.S. is "becoming like this black hole" for investment. Why get involved in the U.S. when there are "plenty of ways" to invest in China, Africa, Europe, or Asia, he said.





"You notice two things when people — from talking with people, especially in the business community, from around the world," Brooks said. "The first is, the U.S. is now becoming like this black hole, that they just don’t want to get involved. And there are plenty of ways to invest in China. There’s plenty of ways to invest in Africa or Europe or Asia. So why get involved in the U.S.? And, as a result, foreign direct investment is plummeting here."



"They just don’t want to be involved with Trump. They just don’t want to be," Brooks said following the U.S. GDP growth numbers. "And they get the sense that America is no longer the central nation. It’s the (INAUDIBLE) the U.S. is imploding. And so you — we should be seeing surges of people who want to invest here. Our economy is doing pretty good. But we’re not seeing that."











"Second, you see this pattern of Trump — and we saw it with the E.U. this week — where he will make an attack, and then he will sort of backtrack and have a sort of peace deal," he added.



"That’s sort of the drama that he likes," he said. "But it means that you can never count on him. I mean, if you’re for — if he does something good or do something bad, there’s always going to be a back track."



"So there’s just permanent instability in the U.S. presidency," Brooks concluded.