The United States, at the forefront of global investments followed by China and Brazil

The United States attracted $141,097 million in foreign investment in the second quarter, a volume that had not been reached in ten years and which represented almost 28.7% of the world total, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

In the report on investment flows published this Friday, the OECD highlighted that this figure is partly explained by greater investment in shares in the real estate sector.

In the first quarter, foreign investments that came to the United States had amounted to 95,088 million dollars, out of a world total of 676,025 million.

In the second quarter, Brazil occupied third position with 23,719 million euros, only behind the United States and China (26,587 million).

The European Union far from the United States

The European Union as a whole raised 62,312 million dollars between April and June, far from the figures of the United States, when between January and March it had raised a much higher amount, 234,536 million dollars.

In the first half of the year as a whole, $236 billion went to the United States, after $140 billion in the second half of 2025.

China was the second country that received the most money in investments from abroad in the entire first half of the year with 61 billion dollars, followed by the Netherlands (48 billion) and Brazil (47 billion).

In Spain, inflows had reached 8,787 million dollars in the first quarter (after 24,303 million in 2025 as a whole), but fell to 718 million in the second.

Global scale

On a global scale, foreign investments grew by 28% in the first half of 2026 to 1,198 trillion dollars, but with a clearly differentiated evolution between a first quarter in which they rose by 45% and a second in which they fell by 26%.

Regarding investment outflows, in the first half of 2026 the United States repeated its position as world leader with 197 billion dollars, a volume in any case lower than the 227 billion in the second part of 2025.

In that first part of the year, Japan followed far behind, with 85 billion dollars of investment abroad, China with 77 billion, France and the Netherlands with 61 billion each.

The countries of the European Union as a whole invested more than 460 billion dollars abroad between January and June, after more than 331 billion in the second half of 2025. Efe