U.S. companies have moved cautiously in repatriating profits stockpiled overseas in response to last year’s tax-law rewrite, after the Trump administration’s assertions that trillions of dollars would come home quickly and supercharge the domestic economy.

The tax-law revamp ended the practice of taxing U.S. companies when they bring home foreign profits. Companies long complained that profit earned abroad was trapped and held it in foreign subsidiaries to avoid additional taxes.

The...