WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is painting a false picture of a U.S. economy unaffected by his trade war with China and other countries.
He describes a blue-sky world in which rapidly escalating tariffs have no impact on American consumers even as a raft of businesses and economists say otherwise, chastising those who caution of potential weakness in the economy as partisans.
"Our Country, economically, is doing great - the talk of the world!" he tweeted Sunday.
He's glossing over the facts.
Some economists have put the costs to an average U.S. household from Trump's pending tariffs on imports from China at $1,000 per year or more, not taking into account the most recent tax hike the president announced Friday of up to 30% on goods. Trump also insisted that economists don't believe his trade disputes with China could spur recession, but in fact most analysts believe a downturn could start in the next two years.
The claims capped a week in which Trump repeatedly misrepresented his administration's record, also citing false progress on veterans' health care, boasting misleadingly about his judicial nominations and blaming President Barack Obama for a policy of separating migrant families that he himself started.
A look at the claims:
ECONOMY
TRUMP: "I think our tariffs are very good for us. We're taking in tens of billions of dollars. China is paying for it." — remarks Friday night to reporters before leaving for the Group of Seven summit in France.
TRUMP: "It's coming in by the billions. We never got 10 cents from China." — remarks Sunday with the British prime minister at G-7 summit.
TRUMP: "The tariffs have cost nothing, in my opinion. ...And we're not paying for the tariffs; China is paying for the tariffs, for the one-hundredth time." — remarks on Aug. 18 to reporters in Morristown, New Jersey.
THE FACTS: Americans, in fact, are paying for the tariffs. It's also false to say the U.S. never collected a dime in tariffs on Chinese goods before Trump took action; they are simply higher in some cases than they were before.
As he escalates a trade war with China, Trump refuses to recognize a reality that his own chief economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, has acknowledged. Tariffs are mainly, if not entirely, paid by companies and consumers in the country that imposes them. China is not sending billions of dollars to the U.S. treasury.
In a study in May, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, with Princeton and Columbia universities, estimated that tariffs from Trump's trade dispute with China were costing $831 per U.S. household on an annual basis, before tariffs were recently escalated. Analysts also found that the burden of Trump's tariffs falls entirely on U.S. consumers and businesses that buy imported products.
A report this month by JPMorgan Chase estimated that tariffs would cost the average American household $1,000 per year if tariffs on another $300 billion of U.S. imports from China proceed in September and December. Trump has since bumped up the scheduled levies even higher, likely adding to the U.S. burden. He announced Friday that tariffs on the $300 billion in goods would increase from 10% to 15%; existing tariffs on another $250 billion in Chinese imports would go from 25% to 30% on Oct. 1 after public feedback.
Trump also has threatened anew to place tariffs on French wine imports to the U.S. in a spat over France's digital services tax; the European Union promised to retaliate. On Sunday, after saying he had "second thoughts" about the trade war with China, the White House later made clear his only regret was that he didn't raise tariffs higher.
The Congressional Budget Office said last week that "trade policies" were weighing on U.S. economic activity, particularly business investment.
"Businesses' uncertainty about trade policies is expected to continue to weigh on private investment and, thus, output," it said.
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TRUMP, asked if he should take responsibility for a 600-point drop Friday in the Dow Jones industrial average spurred by his escalating trade war: "Not at all. Because if you look at from November 9th — the day after the election — we're up 50% or more. We're up many, many points. We were at about sixteen or seventeen thousand. We're at 25,000." — remarks Friday night to reporters.
TRUMP, on the news media: "They are trying to force a Recession, they are trying to 'will' America into ... bad Economic times." — tweets Sunday.
THE FACTS: He's inflating the stock market performance since he was elected.
The Dow closed at 18,590 on Nov. 9, 2016, the day after Trump's election, and it closed at 25,627 last Friday — a 38% increase.
While Trump now regularly praises a rising stock market and blasts those who try to promote "bad economic times," he wasn't always such a big cheerleader.
During the 2016 campaign, Trump derided the economic recovery under Obama as a mirage, dismissing stock gains and warning of recession. "The only thing that looks good is the stock market, but if you raise interest rates even a little bit, that's going to come crashing down," Trump said in Sept. 2016. "We are in a big, fat, ugly bubble."
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TRUMP: "I don't think we're having a recession. We're doing tremendously well ... And most economists actually say that we're not going to have a recession." — remarks to reporters in Morristown, New Jersey.
THE FACTS: Actually, most economists — about 74% — do expect a recession in the U.S. by the end of 2021.
The economists surveyed by the National Association for Business Economics mostly didn't share Trump's optimistic outlook for the economy. Thirty-four percent of the economists said they believe a slowing economy will tip into recession in 2021. That's compares with 25% in the February survey.
An additional 38% of those polled predicted that recession will occur next year, down slightly from 42% in February. An additional 2% of those polled expect a recession to begin this year.
The 226 economists responding work mainly for corporations and trade associations.
The economists have previously expressed concern that Trump's tariffs and higher budget deficits could eventually slow the economy.
The Trump administration has imposed tariffs on goods from many key U.S. trading partners, from China and Europe to Mexico and Canada. On Friday, Trump escalated his trade fight with China by raising retaliatory tariffs and ordering American companies to consider alternatives to doing business there, maintaining that the tariffs will help the administration gain more favorable terms of trade. But U.S. trading partners have also retaliated with tariffs of their own.
