US Treasury Department to launch CFIUS “Fast Track” Pilot Program for foreign investors

Following up President Trump’s directives laid out in his “America First Investment Policy,” the US Treasury Department has announced it will establish a “fast track process” intended to streamline foreign investment reviews before the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) for acquirers and investors from jurisdictions allied with the United States.

Designated as a National Security Presidential Memorandum and issued in February 2025, the America First Investment Policy highlighted several White House initiatives to promote foreign investment in the US while simultaneously protecting US national security.  We previously outlined those initiatives, which called for further scrutinty of investments from China while offering potentially positive implications for acquirers and investors from US ally and partner nations, including an expedited fast track program to facilitate greater investment from “specified allied and partner sources in United States businesses involved with United States advanced technology and other important areas.”  The contours of the fast track were left undefined, other than to note that any expedited process would come with national security guardrails, including that allied investors “avoid partnering with United States foreign adversaries.” 

Treasury’s announcement is the first step in implementing the fast track.  Per Treasury, which chairs CFIUS, the process will include the launch of a “Known Investor portal” where CFIUS can collect information from foreign investors in advance of any CFIUS filing.  Treasury is focused on increasing efficiencies in the CFIUS review process to facilitate greater investment from allies and partners but, consistent with the America First Investment Policy, only where those allies and partners can show “verifiable distance and independence from foreign adversaries or threat actors.”  As US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent remarked, “Treasury is committed to maintaining and enhancing the open investment environment that benefits our economy, while making sure that process efficiencies do not diminish our ability to identify and address national security risks that can accompany foreign investment.” 

Initially, Treasury will conduct a pilot program for the fast track process, and “build from it over time.”  The details of the program are yet to be provided, including when the program will start and what information it will seek from a foreign investor.  It is unknown, for example, whether the program will require much of the same information that a foreign investor would provide in a CFIUS filing (e.g., information on organization and governance, business operations, shareholders, general and limited partners where relevant, etc.);  whether the program will be expressly limited to acquirers or investors from certain nations; and how participation in the Known Investor program will impact current CFIUS review timelines, either practically or by changes to regulations.   Also to be determined is how an allied foreign acquirer or investor can demonstrate the requisite “verifiable distance and independence” from US adversaries, and whether CFIUS will take an approach that conditions the fast track program on a de-risking from adversary nations (most principally, China), or whether the approach will emphasize a more fundamental de-coupling from adversaries.  Last, while we expect the program to have immediate appeal to foreign acquirers or investors that are frequently before CFIUS or that plan future US investments, it is not yet clear whether the program will have significant uptake by foreign persons whose investments may touch the US (directly or indirectly) more sporadically (i.e., will such investors prefer to wait for a filing to provide information to CFIUS).

Despite these unknowns, the Known Investor fast track program, like the America First Investment Policy from which it emanates, is clearly designed to increase the level of foreign capital inflow from US allies by increasing the efficiency of CFIUS reviews.  Therefore, we expect that certain US-allied acquirers and investors will benefit from the program.  We will advise of further developments and how they might help to streamline the CFIUS process.