US President Donald Trump has unleashed a series of assertions prior to implementing his new tariffs – though several lack factual accuracy.
On April 2, the 78-year-old President announced fresh duties affecting all countries importing goods into the United States.
While most nations will encounter a broad 10 percent tariff, 60 countries including Thailand and European Union members will face steeper charges beginning April 9.
Trump contends these elevated, reciprocal tariffs have been established to reinvigorate manufacturing and safeguard employment opportunities.
During the announcement – conducted on what the Republican dubbed ‘Liberation Day’ in the White House Rose Garden – the 47th US President made numerous demonstrably inaccurate statements.
These include claims that the United States was more prosperous when it operated as a ‘tariff’ nation and that inflation under former US President Joe Biden reached unprecedented levels.
CNN reports that Trump has misrepresented facts regarding Canada’s dairy tariffs.
Though the sitting President accurately stated that the country imposes tariffs exceeding 250 percent on certain US dairy products, he incorrectly suggested that ‘the first little carton of milk’ exported to Canada faces a ‘very low price’ before incurring ‘275, 300 percent’ tariffs.
In actuality, tens of thousands of metric tons of US-imported milk enter Canada tariff-free under the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
Another unsubstantiated assertion repeatedly advanced by Trump is that the United States subsidizes Canada with ‘close to $200 billion a year’ due to a trade deficit.
A trade deficit occurs when imported goods’ value from a country surpasses the value of exports to that nation.
However, 2024 statistics reveal last year’s trade deficit with Canada in goods and services was substantially lower than $200 billion.
Instead, goods and services trade figures were recorded at $35.7 billion while goods alone registered at $70.6 billion.
During his 2024 campaign trail, the Republican stated: “From 1789 to 1913, we were a tariff-backed nation, and the United States was proportionately the wealthiest it has ever been.”
Trump didn’t clarify his meaning of ‘proportionately the wealthiest’ at that time, but this erroneous narrative was also promoted during a tariff meeting at the Oval Office on January 31.
He remarked: “We were at our richest from 1870 to 1913. That’s when we were a tariff country, and then they went to an income-tax concept.
“And, you know, how did that work out? It’s fine, it’s OK, but it would have been very much better.”
Troy Senik, author of a biography on Grover Cleveland, who served as US president in the 1880s and 1890s, maintains that it’s ‘just flatly incorrect’ that the USA was wealthier in the 20th century compared to present day.
Current data indicates the US is considerably more affluent, according to the LA Times.
Trump has claimed he’s reduced gas prices ‘way down’ since resuming office earlier this year, asserting ‘gasoline is way under $3’.
CNN reports that the national average price for regular gasoline on the day of his speech (April 2) was approximately $3.24 per gallon, not $3.
The ‘Liberation Day’ price also exceeded the national gas average on his inauguration day (January 20) when the AAA national average was about $3.12.
Trump alleged that under the Biden administration, the US ‘suffered the worst inflation in 48 years, but perhaps even in the history of our country’.
The BBC notes that inflation under Biden peaked at 9.1 percent in June 2022 – the highest level since 1981 – thus not extending as far back as the founding of the United States, as the President claimed.
During the 1920s and 1940s, inflation substantially surpassed 9 percent at various intervals.
Moreover, the highest inflation rate the nation has ever experienced was 29.78 percent in 1778, and since the consumer price index was established, 20.49 percent in 1917.
Trump stated that the duties he imposed on China during his first term ‘took in hundreds of billions of dollars’ that ‘they paid’.
“It’s not a tax on the middle class. This is a tax on another country,” he asserted during another interview.
Vice-President Vance has echoed similar claims, suggesting the tariffs caused prices to decrease for American citizens.
“They went up for the Chinese but they went down for our people,” Vance added.
However, previous studies have determined that Americans actually shouldered the vast majority of costs from Trump’s first-term tariffs on China, according to CNN.
Previously, the businessman has claimed that before his first term in the White House, China ‘never paid ten cents to any other president’ via tariffs.
However, Factcheck.org reports that the United States was already collecting billions of dollars annually from tariffs on Chinese imports prior to Trump’s presidency.