North Carolina is currently competing for 14 significant jobs projects that each promise to invest at least $1 billion.
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Coordinating this effort is the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina, a public-private group created in 2014 to strengthen the state’s business standing. EDPNC has worked behind the scenes to deliver headline-grabbing campus announcements that materialize, like Toyota in Randolph County, and those that so far haven’t, like Apple in Research Triangle Park.
It manages film incentives, too, bringing MrBeast’s reality competition and “The Summer I Turned Pretty” to Eastern North Carolina. And recently, its staff helped the German men’s national team find a World Cup training ground. (Don’t blame Winston-Salem for the team’s early tournament exit.)
Over 11 years as CEO Christopher Chung has led EDPNC across three governors and four vastly different presidential administrations. He has seen North Carolina rise to the top of CNBC’s best states for business list, with the new rankings scheduled to be released within two weeks.
In a June 30 interview with The News & Observer, Chung shared how Trump 2.0 has shaped his job, which state he considers North Carolina’s biggest recruitment rival, and what lessons lawmakers can learn when companies pledge to create hundreds of jobs but never do. Plus, which foreign country is North Carolina particularly bullish about investing here.
The N&O’s conversation with Chung has been lightly edited for clarity and length.
N&O: This year, North Carolina has announced some big economic projects — AbbVie in the Triangle and SMBC in Charlotte. But overall, I sense there have been fewer project announcements. Is that something you all are seeing?
Chung: Around the time Toyota announced (in Randolph County), probably like the second half of ‘21 through the first half of ‘23, felt like the busiest in terms of number of mega projects announcing somewhere in North Carolina or outside the state. And a lot of that was driven by EV, EV supply chain and semiconductor related.
A lot of that, of course, being spurred by federal policy support, IRA, CHIPS Act. That was definitely a high-water mark for sheer busyness involving major massive projects, and yeah, we aren’t seeing as many of those come around.
N&O: North Carolina has started spending more taxpayer dollars upfront on sites and workforce training. Are companies nationwide asking for more incentives?
Chung: I think over 30 years, the cottage industry of professionals who help companies negotiate for a larger incentive package has grown because it’s a specialized type of service.
There is plenty of room for philosophical debate around the role of incentives, and whether states should or shouldn’t use them, or communities should or shouldn’t use them. I think there are also political realities where we are competing every day with other states, and as a state, disarming unilaterally when other states have not done the same could put us in a real competitive disadvantage.
N&O: Many headline-making jobs projects never materialize. They get announced and then a few years later, they withdraw. What would you say to readers?
Chung: It is in no one’s interest for grand plans to be announced, and then never followed through on. That doesn’t serve our interests well, doesn’t serve the local community’s interest well, certainly doesn’t serve that particular company’s interest well.
That’s a different thing than being able to predict the future with 100% accuracy, and I think when plans don’t materialize, it’s often because conditions that justify that investment in the first place have changed to the point where what that company is proposing to do no longer makes economic sense.
Now there are a couple questions, right? If they only deliver 80% of what they promised, is that still pretty good? I would say so. We ideally want 100% or better of what they promised. Sometimes it’s 0%. And I think the 0% situations are because the ground has shifted in ways that no one could have predicted.
N&O: Are there lessons to learn from the 0% projects?
Chung: In as much as they reinforce the need for incentives, taxpayer-funded incentives, that are protected in the case that plans don’t materialize. I think that’s the biggest lesson is to remember that we have these safeguards in place.
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N&O: What state is our biggest economic rival when it comes to business recruitment?
Chung: I’m an Ohio State graduate, so losing to Michigan is terrible for football. My equivalent in economic development is Georgia. I have a lot of respect for Georgia. I think they match us toe-to-toe in just about every industry and type of economic development deal that we compete for. I don’t like to lose anybody, but Georgia is the one, and I think part of is I really respect the process and longevity and strategy that they bring to this effort.
N&O: North Carolina’s business relationship with Japan has gotten a lot of coverage. What foreign country is second in terms of investment and overall momentum in the state?
Chung: Germany and the UK are both high. England’s the most historic relationship. Germany is probably the one that’s been more active in recent years.
N&O: Why has Germany become more active?
Chung: (What we hear is that) regulatory systems in Europe are increasingly making it harder for companies to invest and expand, and so that is compelling them to look at the United States as a more attractive location for deploying capital. I think their population growth trends are flatter than the United States, and so the market itself for products and services is not growing as rapidly.
I think tariffs certainly can be another reason companies choose to look over here, although I’m sure companies also have to weigh that against how long will these tariffs be on the book when the administration changes in 2028. And so I think tariffs probably aren’t a long-term rationale for investing in the United States.
N&O: Has North Carolina seen international tourism impacted during the second Trump term?
Chung: Traffic from Canada is certainly down, and Canada is probably our biggest international source of visitation. A lot of the snow birds hit North Carolina on the way in or down.
It’s still important for us to prioritize targeting international audiences for tourism visitation, not least because when international travelers visit, they tend to spend more because they’re staying for a longer period of time.
Note: According to data from Tourism Economics, which EDPNC calls the industry standard, international visitors spent $100 million less in North Carolina in 2025, compared to 2024. This represents an approximately 8% decrease. Domestic tourism spending year-to-year increased $500 million, or 1.4%.
N&O: How has the transition from Trump to Biden to Trump impacted your work?
Chung: I started in ‘97 as an intern my senior year at Ohio State, and for the first 20, 25 years of doing this, you knew the federal government had an impact, right? Like the federal government, at a macro level, has a lot of levers that can dictate how the economy is doing. Starting with the first Trump term, and then continuing ever since then, I think the imprint of federal policy has been much more noticeable in terms of specific projects that we compete for in economic development.
Trump One, it was a lot about the threat of tariff actions and trade barriers that were compelling a lot of international companies to look very seriously at localizing production or operations in the United States. Biden administration with the focus on (the Inflation Reduction Act) and CHIPS Act — I mean, these were billions of dollars flowing to support a discrete set of industry sectors that could benefit from this money in expanding their capacity.
Not only does the second Trump term have their own set of policy preferences, but I think in a way that’s probably atypical of past changes, the administration pretty much like squashed anything that was being promoted by the previous administration, as is their prerogative.
N&O: Where is federal momentum now?
Defense technology is a big one. Congress and the White House (proposed) a trillion and a half dollars to defense spending. That’s not some abstract number, that’s money that will go to defense contractors to build autonomous drone systems, to build weapons technology, cyber, all these different ways that defense and war fighting is being done.
Where is that going to be made or developed? That’s the opportunity for states like North Carolina.
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This story was originally published July 6, 2026 at 6:30 AM.