President Trump falsely claimed that the U.S. has “never taken in 10 cents from China” in tariffs, but “now we’re taking in billions and billions of dollars.” The U.S. has collected billions in customs duties on Chinese imports for years, although the amount has increased since the trade war with China began.
President Donald Trump is fond of saying that China is paying the U.S. billions of dollars in increased tariffs. Not true. Tariffs are taxes paid by U.S. importers in the form of customs duties, and to some extent by U.S. consumers in the form of higher prices.
When asked whether he would impose tariffs on cars imported from the European Union, President Donald Trump, as he regularly does, used an inflated figure for the trade balance between the U.S. and the EU. The deficit was $101 billion for 2017, not $151 billion, as he repeatedly claims.
President Donald Trump declared via Twitter that he is keeping perhaps his most famous campaign promise, claiming that “MEXICO IS PAYING FOR THE WALL!” through a recent trade agreement negotiated with Mexico. But economic and trade experts we interviewed said that’s not possible.
President Donald Trump says social media is “my form of telling the truth.” In fact, there are many well-documented examples of Trump — as a candidate and as president — spreading false information on Twitter.
In a wide-ranging interview on CBS’ “60 Minutes,” President Donald Trump repeated several false and misleading claims, while putting a new twist on some of them.
President Donald Trump distorted some facts about trade in a press conference announcing an agreement to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement with the United States, Mexico, Canada Agreement, or USMCA.
President Donald Trump wrongly said that “nobody from this country knew” about Mexico’s value-added tax until after NAFTA was signed. A deputy U.S. trade representative at the time NAFTA was put in place said: “US policymakers, embassy officials and tax authorities were fully aware of Mexico’s VAT system.”
Here we highlight a number of key statistics about trade, and summarize some of the stories we have written when these facts have been misrepresented.
In announcing a tentative agreement with Mexico, President Donald Trump called Mexico “a very large trading partner” and said negotiations would now begin with Canada, which he called a “smaller segment.” But U.S. trade with Canada was about $57 billion larger than trade with Mexico in 2017.