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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial
ARTICLE VIEW:
Fact check: John Deere says Trump’s story about how he saved US jobs
with a tariff threat is fictional
By Daniel Dale, CNN
Updated:
10:39 AM EDT, Wed October 16, 2024
Source: CNN
When former President Donald Trump was challenged at a Tuesday event
about the potential economic harms of his proposal for , Trump told
what sounded like a tariff success story.
He said that in response to his to impose hefty tariffs on John Deere
if the storied American farm equipment maker went ahead with a some
production from the US to Mexico, the company had just announced it was
likely abandoning that outsourcing plan.
Trump : “Are you ready? John Deere, great company. They announced
about a year ago they’re gonna build big plants outside of the United
States. Right? They’re going to build them in Mexico … I said,
‘If John Deere builds those plants, they’re not selling anything
into the United States.’ They just announced yesterday they’re
probably not going to build the plants, OK? I kept the jobs here.”
But a search of news articles and corporate press releases showed
nothing about any such John Deere announcement the day prior. And in
response to Trump’s story, a John Deere spokesperson told and that it
had not changed its plans or announced any such changes.
The Trump campaign did not respond to a CNN request for any evidence
for the former president’s story.
Trump has in recent weeks. Aside from the John Deere story, the
Republican presidential nominee made at least 19 false claims at the
Tuesday event, which was a public interview at the Economic Club of
Chicago that was conducted by John Micklethwait, editor-in-chief of
Bloomberg News.
Harris, migrants and criminals: Trump, criticizing Vice President
Kamala Harris on immigration, again a recently released set of
statistics about immigrants in the US with homicide convictions, again
that the figures are specifically about people who entered the country
during the Biden-Harris administration: “It came out that 13,099 were
let in, during their administration – they tried to say longer,
wrong: over the last three-and-a-half years – 13,000-plus people came
in: murderers.”
In reality, these figures are about people who entered the country over
decades, including during Trump’s own administration, not just under
Biden and Harris. And, critically, the figures include people who are
currently incarcerated in federal, state and local prisons and jails.
You can read more .
Guns and the Capitol riot: Trump, speaking of rioters at the Capitol on
January 6, 2021, his false claim that “not one of those people had a
gun.” It has been proven in court that – in addition to stun guns,
knives, chemical sprays and numerous other weapons.
The size of the Capitol riot: Trump correctly noted that the
Washington, DC, rally he addressed prior to the Capitol riot was
peaceful, but then wrongly described the size of the riot, , “I
don’t know what you had – five, six, seven hundred people – go
down to the Capitol.”
Trump’s figures are way off. The Justice Department in an official
update earlier this month that about 1,532 defendants had, so far, been
federally charged with crimes associated with the attack on the
Capitol. The FBI in 2021 that “approximately 2,000 individuals are
believed to have been involved with the siege” and the actual number
.
Inflation under Trump: Trump his false claim that there was “no
inflation” over his four years as president. Cumulative inflation
during Trump’s presidency .
Inflation under Biden: Trump also falsely , “Biden went two years
with no inflation, because he inherited from me. And then they started
spending money like drunken sailors.” during Biden’s first two
years as president was , and inflation increased sharply in Biden’s
first months as president in 2021. In fact, the Biden-era peak for
year-over-year inflation, about 9.1% in June 2022, happened within
Biden’s first two years as president.
Supreme Court justices: Trump correctly said that he was able to
appoint three Supreme Court justices, but he falsely , “Most
presidents don’t even get to put a Supreme Court judge in.” Just
four presidents didn’t get to appoint a Supreme Court justice, as
PolitiFact when Trump made a similar claim; three of those four
presidents served less than a full term.
Who pays tariffs: Trump his false claim that, through tariffs, “We
got hundreds of billions of dollars just from China alone.” US
importers make the actual tariff payments, not China, and has found
that Americans bore the overwhelming majority of the cost of Trump’s
tariffs on China.
Previous presidents and tariffs on China: Trump repeated his false
claim that no previous president had imposed tariffs on Chinese
imports, , “Not one president charged China anything.” The US was
; in fact, the US has had tariffs on Chinese imports since . And while
Trump specifically named President Barack Obama as a president who
didn’t “charge” China, Obama on Chinese goods.
Trade with the European Union: Trump falsely of the European Union:
“Farm products – you know, they don’t want our farm – they
don’t want anything from us.” The US of total goods and services to
the European Union in 2023. The federal government the EU was the
fifth-largest 2022 export market for US agricultural and related
products, behind China, Canada, Mexico and Japan.
The trade deficit with the European Union: Trump falsely the US has
“a trade deficit of $300 billion with the European Union”; he then
to “$350 billion.” The US goods and services trade deficit with the
European Union . Even counting goods trade alone and excluding
services, the 2023 deficit was about $201 billion.
Venezuela and migration: Trump his false claim that Venezuela has
emptied its prisons to send criminals to the US as migrants, then added
in his that “they load up the buses and they drive them into the
United States, and they’re dropping their prisoners into our
country.”
Experts have told , and that they know of no evidence that
Venezuela has emptied prisons for migration purposes; Trump has never
corroborated that claim, let alone his new claim about Venezuelan
authorities somehow busing criminals into the US.
The US and NATO: Trump his false claim that, until he became president,
the US was “spending almost 100% for NATO.” Official that in
2016, the last year before Trump took office, US defense spending made
up about 71% of total defense spending by NATO members – a large
majority, but not “almost 100%.” And Trump’s claim is even more
inaccurate if he was talking about the that cover NATO’s
organizational expenses, which are set based on each country’s
national income; the US was responsible for in 2016.
Trump and Nord Stream 2: Trump that, as president, “The first thing I
did was terminated Nord Stream 2,” a Russian natural gas pipeline to
Germany.
But Trump didn’t terminate the pipeline, let alone do so as his first
act in office. In reality, he signed sanctions related to the pipeline
into law , when the pipeline was . The state-owned Russian company
behind the project in December 2020, while Trump was still
president, that construction was resuming.
In addition, Trump his false claim that, before he opposed the project,
“Nobody ever heard of Nord Stream 2.” Nord Stream 2 was a regular
subject of media, government and diplomatic discussion before Trump
took office. In fact, Joe Biden .
Trump and ISIS: Trump his false claim that “I knocked out ISIS in a
matter of weeks; it was supposed to take four to five years, I did it
in a matter of weeks.” The ISIS “caliphate” was declared fully
liberated into Trump’s presidency.
South Korea’s payments for the US military presence: Trump his false
claim that before his presidency, South Korea paid “nothing” for
the US military presence there. He that when he started trying to get
South Korea to pay, the country responded, “We will not. We haven’t
paid since the Korean War.”
South Korea has been paying for the US military presence . In 2014,
more than two years before Trump took office, South Korea and then, ,
to increase the payments annually based on the rate of inflation. The
Congressional Research Service in a 2023 report: “In the past, South
Korea generally paid for 40%-50% (over $800 million annually) of the
total non-personnel costs of maintaining the U.S. troop presence in
South Korea.”
US troops in South Korea: Trump falsely , as he has before, that the US
has “40,000 troops” in South Korea.
show that Trump’s figure is a significant exaggeration, whether he
was talking about troop levels under Biden or the situation when he
took office. As of June 30, 2024, there were 27,076 US military
personnel in South Korea, including civilians working for the
Department of Defense, according to those official statistics; as of
December 31, 2016, less than a month before Trump took office, it was
26,878.
Trump’s negotiations with South Korea: Trump falsely that after
demanding that South Korea pay $5 billion per year for the US military
presence there, “they agreed to $2 (billion); I got $2 billion for
nothing.” In reality, the one-year deal to which South Korea agreed
in 2019 , not $2 billion; Trump, who continued to make demands for far
greater sums, was a longer-term deal while he was president.
Biden’s deal with South Korea: Trump his false claim that under
Biden, South Korea is back to paying “nothing” for the US military
presence, saying, “Because it went back to Biden and they gave it to
them for nothing.”
In fact, South Korea agreed under Biden and Harris to pay more for the
US military presence than it had been paying during the Trump era.
Completing the negotiations that began under Trump, South Korea —
meaning its payment that year would be about $1 billion — and then
additional increases in 2022 through 2025 tied to increases in South
Korea’s defense budget.
The two countries for another deal covering the period from 2026 to
2030, which would begin with an 8.3% increase over the 2025 payment.
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