{"id":193145,"date":"2018-12-08T22:23:07","date_gmt":"2018-12-09T03:23:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=193145"},"modified":"2018-12-08T22:23:07","modified_gmt":"2018-12-09T03:23:07","slug":"ap-fact-check-trumps-trade-claims-paris-protesters-chant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/12\/08\/ap-fact-check-trumps-trade-claims-paris-protesters-chant\/","title":{"rendered":"AP FACT CHECK: Trump’s trade claims, Paris protesters’ chant"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Trump claimed that China had agreed to reduce or eliminate its 40 per cent tariffs on cars imported from the U.S. His top economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, acknowledged no deal had been \u201csigned and sealed and delivered yet.\u201d (File Photo<\/a>: Donald J. Trump\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 Eager for a historic trade agreement, President Donald Trump is claiming done deals with China that aren’t measuring up to the hype.<\/p>\n

He describes last week’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Buenos Aires, Argentina, as \u201cextraordinary\u201d and a \u201cbig leap forward.\u201d China, however, has provided few details and little confirmation about what it actually agreed to do in regard to buying more American products and addressing the Trump administration’s assertions that Beijing steals American technology.<\/p>\n

Trump claimed that China had agreed to reduce or eliminate its 40 per cent tariffs on cars imported from the U.S. His top economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, acknowledged no deal had been \u201csigned and sealed and delivered yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

The statements marked a week when Trump also claimed without evidence for a second time that Paris protesters were chanting support for him, grossly overstated the costs of illegal immigration and derided U.S. weapons spending as crazy, despite earlier boasts about increasing the military budget.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Democratic Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ignored reality when she suggested the Pentagon has a hidden pot of $21 trillion that could help pay for \u201cMedicare for All.\u201d The total defence budget during the period in question only totalled $9 trillion.<\/p>\n

A look at the claims and the facts:<\/p>\n

PARIS<\/p>\n

TRUMP: \u201cThe Paris Agreement isn’t working out so well for Paris. Protests and riots all over France. People do not want to pay large sums of money, much to third world countries (that are questionably run), in order to maybe protect the environment. Chanting \u201cWe Want Trump!\u201d Love France.\u201d \u2014 tweet Saturday.<\/p>\n

THE FACTS: Neither Associated Press journalists covering protests in the city nor any French television networks have shown evidence that supporters were chanting any slogans in support of Trump. The protests that began as a revolt against a gas tax increase have turned increasingly violent and France imposed exceptional security measures Saturday to prevent a repeat of rioting a week ago.<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n

JERUSALEM<\/p>\n

TRUMP: \u201cWe quickly moved the American embassy to Jerusalem and we got it built.\u201d\u2014 remarks Thursday at Hanukkah event.<\/p>\n

THE FACTS: Nothing’s been built yet. The Trump administration designated an existing U.S. consular facility in Jerusalem for the U.S. Embassy, retrofitting some offices and holding a big dedication ceremony in May. The U.S. has yet to identify a permanent site for the new embassy, a process that is expected to take years. The State Department has estimated that constructing a new embassy would cost more than $500 million.<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n

TARIFFS<\/p>\n

TRUMP: \u201cChina has agreed to reduce and remove tariffs on cars coming into China from the U.S. Currently the tariff is 40%.\u201d \u2014 tweet Sunday.<\/p>\n

THE FACTS: Nearly a week later, it’s still not clear if this will happen. When asked about the matter, Kudlow would only say that he hoped China would remove its tariffs on U.S. autos. \u201cWe don’t yet have a specific agreement on that, but I will just tell you, as an involved participant, we expect those tariffs to go to zero,\u201d he told reporters on Monday. Pressed again Tuesday, Kudlow told \u201cFox and Friends\u201d that he expected China to move quickly on removing the tariffs \u201cif they’re serious about this.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it’s coming, OK?\u201d he said. \u201cIt hasn’t been signed and sealed and delivered yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

The White House’s confusing and conflicting words have left Wall Street skeptical.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn’t seem like anything was actually agreed to at the dinner and White House officials are contorting themselves into pretzels to reconcile Trump’s tweets (which seem if not completely fabricated then grossly exaggerated) with reality,\u201d JPMorgan told investors in a trading note.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, a Chinese official said that China will \u201cimmediately implement the consensus reached by the two sides on farm products, cars and energy,\u201d but did not address the auto tariffs specifically or provide any additional details.<\/p>\n

Trump has cast doubt on whether a firm agreement had been reached, tweeting Tuesday that his administration will determine \u201cwhether or not a REAL deal with China is actually possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n

TRUMP: \u201cI am a Tariff Man. When people or countries come in to raid the great wealth of our Nation, I want them to pay for the privilege of doing so. It will always be the best way to max out our economic power. We are right now taking in $billions in Tariffs. MAKE AMERICA RICH AGAIN.\u201d \u2014 tweet Tuesday.<\/p>\n

THE FACTS: Trump seems to be claiming that tariffs are some kind of a membership fee for foreign companies to trade in the U.S. economy.<\/p>\n

They’re not. Tariffs are a tax, per Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution.<\/p>\n

The costs of this tax are borne by U.S. consumers and businesses, often in the form of higher prices. Foreign companies may end up selling fewer goods and services if the United States imposes high tariffs. So they pay a price, too.<\/p>\n

In some cases, the tariffs exist to protect industries that are vital for national security. Or, the tariffs exist to retaliate against the trade practices of other countries. Or, they might protect politically connected companies.<\/p>\n

In the past, White House aides have insisted that Trump’s tariffs are a negotiating ploy. Yet the president offered no such qualifications on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Tariffs are not seen as some easy way of generating massive wealth for an economically developed nation. After Trump announced steel and aluminum tariffs earlier this year, the University of Chicago asked leading academic economists in March whether Americans would be better off because of import taxes. Not a single economist surveyed said the country would be wealthier.<\/p>\n

Nor do the budget numbers suggest they can come anywhere close to covering the costs of the federal government.<\/p>\n

Trump is correct that tariffs did generate $41.3 billion in tax revenues last budget year, according to the Treasury Department. But to put that in perspective, the federal budget exceeds $4.1 trillion.<\/p>\n

The taxes collected on imports were equal to about 1 per cent of all federal spending.<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n

MEDICARE<\/p>\n

OCASIO-CORTEZ: \u201c$21 TRILLION of Pentagon financial transactions ‘could not be traced, documented, or explained.’ $21T in Pentagon accounting errors. Medicare for All costs (tilde)$32T. That means 66% of Medicare for All could have been funded already by the Pentagon. And that’s before our premiums.\u201d \u2014 tweet Sunday.<\/p>\n

THE FACTS: Ocasio-Cortez is generally correct to suggest that one way of paying for the huge cost of \u201cMedicare for All\u201d would be to cut spending elsewhere. But she is wrong to suggest that there’s pot of misspent defence dollars that could cover the new health care expenses. The New York Democrat also misrepresents the findings of an academic study that found the $21 trillion in Pentagon errors to be accounting \u201cadjustments,\u201d not a tally of actual money wasted.<\/p>\n

The study by Mark Skidmore, an economist at Michigan State University and Catherine Austin Fitts, a former assistant secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, did find $21 trillion in Pentagon transactions from 1998 to 2015 that could not be verified. Their study is a cited in a Nation article retweeted in part by Ocasio-Cortez, even though that article makes clear that not \u201call of this $21 trillion was secret or misused funding … the plugs are found on both the positive and the negative sides of the ledger, thus potentially netting each other out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Total defence spending from 1998 to 2015 was $9 trillion. That means defunding the military entirely would only cover a small portion of the estimated $32 trillion cost over 10 years for the \u201cMedicare for All\u201d legislation by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. Ocasio-Cortez wrongly suggests that fixing Pentagon accounting errors would net 66 per cent of costs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat she was referencing was the total number of transactions that happened with DoD \u2014 there’s a lot of double and triple counting as money gets moved around in the department,\u201d said Todd Harrison, director of defence budget analysis at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. \u201cAll of that basically means is that those transactions don’t have a full trail,\u201d akin to an employee who submits an expense report without providing all the receipts.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust because you don’t have the proper audit trail for transactions doesn’t mean that those transactions are fraudulent,\u201d Harrison said.<\/p>\n

David Norquist, the Pentagon’s comptroller, has attributed the accounting errors to the department’s older bookkeeping \u201csystems that do not automatically pass data from one to the other.\u201d He said in testimony to the House Armed Services Committee in January that the errors do not amount to a pot of lost money. \u201cI wouldn’t want the taxpayer to confuse that with the loss of something like a trillion dollars, it’s not. That wouldn’t be accurate,\u201d Norquist said.<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n

MILITARY SPENDING<\/p>\n

TRUMP: \u201cI am certain that, at some time in the future, President Xi and I, together with President Putin of Russia, will start talking about a meaningful halt to what has become a major and uncontrollable Arms Race. The U.S. spent 716 Billion Dollars this year. Crazy!\u201d \u2014 tweet Monday.<\/p>\n

THE FACTS: His criticism of U.S. weapons spending as \u201ccrazy\u201d vastly overstates the amount spent on the arms race. It also is a sudden change of tone from his previous boasts about increased military spending.<\/p>\n

Trump’s statement appeared to confuse the total Defence Department budget with America’s investment in the missile defence systems and strategic nuclear weapons usually associated with the arms race. The Pentagon’s budget for 2019 totals about $716 billion, but that includes everything from health care and pay for service members to the costs of the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. The arms race is just a fraction of that amount, totalling about $10 billion this year for a wide range of missile defence and nuclear weapons programs.<\/p>\n

Until recently, Trump has bragged about his increase in military spending, railing about what he claims is previous administrations’ neglect of America’s armed forces. He said his administration is \u201crebuilding our military.\u201d He has occasionally complained about specific programs such as Air Force One and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, but his criticism was levelled at the defence contractors and focused on demanding savings.<\/p>\n

He has been far more supportive of the broader defence increases, and specifically has endorsed hikes for missile defence in line with a U.S. defence strategy that targets China and Russia as key adversaries.<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n

IMMIGRATION<\/p>\n

TRUMP: \u201cCould somebody please explain to the Democrats (we need their votes) that our Country losses (sic) 250 Billion Dollars a year on illegal immigration, not including the terrible drug flow. Top Border Security, including a Wall, is $25 Billion. Pays for itself in two months. Get it done!\u201d \u2014 tweet Tuesday.<\/p>\n

THE FACTS: He’s inflating the cost of illegal immigration. Trump’s numbers left even those sympathetic to the president’s position scratching their heads.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m not sure where the president got his numbers,\u201d said Dave Ray, a spokesman for the non-profit group FAIR, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which advocates for lower immigration numbers.<\/p>\n

Neither the White House nor the Department of Homeland Security responded to questions about where the $250 billion estimate had come from.<\/p>\n

The Heritage Foundation, for instance, estimated in 2013 that households headed by immigrants living in the U.S. illegally impose a net fiscal burden of around $54.5 billion per year.<\/p>\n

Even Trump himself has contradicted the figure. During his 2016 campaign, Trump claimed that illegal immigration cost the country more than $113 billion a year \u2014 less than half the number he tweeted Tuesday.<\/p>\n

That estimate appeared based on a paper by FAIR, which released an updated report in 2017 that claimed taxpayers \u201cshell out approximately $134.9 billion to cover the costs incurred by the presence of more than 12.5 million illegal aliens, and about 4.2 million citizen children of illegal aliens\u201d at the federal, state and local levels, with \u201ca tax burden of approximately $8,075 per illegal alien family member and a total of $115,894,597,664.\u201d<\/p>\n

The $116 million figure included services such as health care and education, as well as spending on agencies including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, minus the $19 billon the group concluded those who are living in the country illegally pay in taxes. But it also included costs associated with the children of those immigrants in its tally, even when they are U.S. citizens. The estimate was criticized for making broad generalizations and other major methodological flaws.<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n

FENTANYL<\/p>\n

TRUMP, about his meeting with Xi at the gathering of leading rich and developing nations: \u201cWhat he will be doing to fentanyl could be a game changer for the United States \u2014 and what fentanyl is doing to our country in terms of killing people. Because he’s agreed to put it at the highest level of crime in his country.\u201d \u2014 aboard Air Force One on Dec. 1.<\/p>\n

TRUMP: \u201cOne of the very exciting things to come out of my meeting with President Xi of China is his promise to me to criminalize the sale of deadly Fentanyl coming into the United States. It will now be considered a ‘controlled substance.\u201d’ \u2014 tweet Wednesday.<\/p>\n

THE FACTS: That’s a misreading of what China agreed to do, at least as far as Chinese authorities are concerned.<\/p>\n

Fentanyl has been a controlled substance in China for years, according to Chinese regulators. All told, China has already put 25 variants of fentanyl, plus two precursors \u2014 chemicals used to make the drug \u2014 on its list of controlled substances, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said last week.<\/p>\n

Now, \u201cChina has decided to list all the fentanyl-like substances as controlled substances and start working to adjust related regulations,\u201d says China’s foreign ministry.<\/p>\n

Doing so could help block China’s opioid merchants from skirting the law by inventing new chemical variants of fentanyl faster than regulators can declare them illegal.<\/p>\n

The standard approach of regulating drugs one by one has failed to control the proliferation of new and deadly synthetic opioids in the United States.<\/p>\n

In February, the U.S. said that for at least the next two years, all new chemical versions of fentanyl that weren’t already regulated would be classified as illegal controlled substances. U.S. officials had been urging China to do something similar.<\/p>\n

But China hasn’t always followed through on its promises. \u201cSimilar suggestions have failed to gain approval from Chinese regulators in the past,\u201d the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission said in a report last week that criticized China for \u201cslow and ineffective\u201d regulation of fentanyl.<\/p>\n

In 2016, U.S. negotiators thought they had secured an agreement with Beijing that China would target U.S.-bound exports of substances that were illegal in the United States, even if they weren’t illegal in China, but Beijing never implemented the policy, according to the commission, a group formed by the U.S. Congress to monitor economic relations with China.<\/p>\n

China’s new approach could indeed be game changing, as Trump said. But so far there’s no timeline for implementation of the policy.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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