Top multinational corporations in the US will see a major change in fortunes as the Trump administration goes about making a radical change in foreign and trade policies. The US economy and its companies are set for a major paradigm change with the election of Donald Trump. Most big US companies earn a substantial amount of revenues from foreign operations. Not only are most of these MNCs earning more than half their revenues from non-U.S. jurisdictions but also growing much more rapidly in those countries. The new Trump administration promises to change the whole status quo. With his “America First” policy, the new Republican administration may impose large taxes on imports which may result in tit for tat trade protectionist measures by major US trade partners such as China, Japan and Germany. The U.S. dollar is also set to rise under a new administration which will negatively affect the top multinational corporations in the US as they become less competitive in other countries. This will also reduce the dollar value of their foreign revenues.
Large automakers have already changed their expansion plans in Mexico after Donald Trump threatened them with increased taxes in recent tweets. While foreign governments have not retaliated yet, trade wars are a real possibility based on Donald Trump’s recent key government appointees. On the positive side, MNCs may benefit from the lower corporate tax rate which has been promised plus the reduced tax burden on repatriation of overseas profits. Business friendly policies such as reduced regulations will also benefit the oil and gas MNCs. However, technology MNCs may not fare well, given that a number of top technology CEOs were opposed to Trump during his campaign and also have the most to lose from trade friction. Large industrial MNCs may benefit from the increased infrastructure spending while healthcare giants may suffer as Trump has indicated that he wants to reduce the price of healthcare products and services.
In the article below, we have ranked the top 10 multinational corporations in the US based on their market value and looked at the size of their overseas operations. Some of them also rank in our list of 11 most respected companies in the world. We have left out large financial firms which are mostly US-focused.
