So who is benefiting from the tax cut? Basically, shareholders, who have received increased dividends and seen a lot of capital gains as corporations use their windfall not to invest, but to buy back their own stocks.

And a big share of these gains to shareholders has gone to foreigners.

We live, after all, in an era of globalized finance, in which wealthy investors normally own assets in many countries. Americans own trillions in foreign equity, both directly in the form of foreign stocks and indirectly in the form of stocks of U.S. corporations with foreign subsidiaries. Foreigners, correspondingly, have a big stake here, again both through direct stock ownership and via operation of their corporate subsidiaries.

Over all, foreigners own about 35 percent of the equity in corporations subject to U.S. taxes. And as a result, foreign investors have received around 35 percent of the benefits of the tax cut. As I said, that’s more than $40 billion a year.

To put this in perspective, Trump’s tariffs on China have raised $20 billion so far. Even if China were paying those tariffs — which it isn’t — that would fall well short of the gift he’s made to foreign investors.

Alternatively, we can compare Trump’s gift to foreign investors with our actual spending on foreign aid (which is much smaller than most people imagine). In 2017, the U.S. spent $51 billion on “international affairs,” but much of that was either the cost of operating embassies or military assistance. The Trump tax break for overseas investors is considerably bigger than the total amount we spend on foreign aid proper.

Now, the U.S. economy is almost inconceivably huge, producing more than $20 trillion worth of goods and services every year. We’re also a country that investors trust to honor its debts, so the tax cut, irresponsible as it is, isn’t causing any immediate fiscal stress.

So Trump’s giveaway to foreign investors isn’t going to make or break us, although it’s probably enough to ensure that the tax cut will be, over all, a net drain on economic growth: Even if the tax cut has some positive effect on the total income generated here (which is doubtful), this will probably be more than offset by the increased share of that income accruing to foreigners rather than U.S. citizens.

Still, even in America, $40 billion here, $40 billion there, and eventually you’re talking about real money. Furthermore, it does seem worth pointing out that even as Trump boasts about taking money away from foreigners, his actual policies are doing exactly the opposite.

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