Inflation hasn’t “stopped.” Consumer costs are up throughout this presidential time period, not “down.” Grocery costs are rising, not beginning to fall “rapidly.” US companies and customers, not China, pay US tariffs on Chinese imports. It’s unimaginable to scale back prescription drug costs by “thousands” of proportion factors, since this could imply Americans could be getting paid to accumulate their medicines.
President Donald Trump made quite a few false claims about inflation in a Tuesday speech to the Detroit Economic Club. He additionally delivered a bunch of falsehoods about broader economic topics and about a wide range of different points he deserted his teleprompter to debate, together with elections and immigration.
Here is a truth examine of a few of his remarks.
Economy, costs and taxes
The state of inflation: Trump falsely claimed, “Inflation is stopped.” Inflation very a lot continues. The new Consumer Price Index report, launched the morning of Trump’s speech, showed that common client costs have been 2.7% greater in December than they have been a yr prior and 0.3% greater than they have been in November. (At one other second within the speech, Trump made a vaguer declare that there’s now “almost no inflation.”)
Prices beneath Trump: In his conclusion to the speech, Trump falsely claimed, “Prices are down.” Earlier, he scoffed at Democrats who say the midterms could be about affordability, saying, “It’s an election about high prices, that was caused by the Democrats, and that I brought down a lot.” While it’s honest for Trump to level on the market was excessive inflation beneath Biden’s Democratic administration – although economists debate how a lot was brought on by Democrats’ insurance policies – total client costs are up, not down, throughout Trump’s second presidency. As of December, common client costs have been about 2.2% higher, on a seasonally adjusted foundation, than they have been in January 2025, the month Trump returned to workplace. Some merchandise received cheaper throughout that interval, however way more merchandise received dearer.
Grocery costs: Trump falsely claimed, “Grocery prices are starting to go rapidly down.” The new Consumer Price Index inflation report launched earlier on Tuesday confirmed grocery costs spiked from November to December on the quickest month-to-month fee, 0.7%, in more than three years; they have been 2.4% greater in December than they have been a yr prior. It’s doable that these figures have been affected by how the autumn authorities shutdown affected the federal government’s information assortment efforts, however regardless, there is no such thing as a foundation for Trump’s declare that total grocery costs are starting to fall rapidly. (Trump repeatedly made such claims in 2025 whilst information repeatedly confirmed grocery costs continued to rise.)
Prescription drug costs: Trump repeated his false declare that prescription drug costs are “going to be coming down thousands of percents” due to his “Most Favored Nation” coverage, including, “We’re standing up to special interests and slashing prescription drug prices by 300, 400, 500 and even 600%, and more.” These claims are debunked by math itself; if the president magically received drug firms to scale back the costs of all of their medicine to $0, that may be a 100% minimize, whereas a decline of greater than 100 proportion factors would imply that Americans would receives a commission to accumulate their drugs, which isn’t taking place. You can learn an extended truth examine here.
Biden and inflation: Trump repeated his false claims that the Biden administration had “the worst inflation in the history of our country” and that “we inherited the worst inflation in the history of our country” – then, in an uncommon acknowledgment of truth checks, famous that the media has corrected this declare and “would say 49 years.” The “49 years” determine is nearer to the reality, however even that’s an exaggeration. The year-over-year US inflation rate hit a few 40-year excessive through the Biden administration in June 2022, when it was 9.1%. That was not near the all-time record of 23.7%, set in 1920 – and it occurred greater than two years earlier than Trump returned. Inflation had plummeted earlier than Trump returned to workplace in January 2025, when it was 3.0%.
Investment within the US: Trump repeated his common false declare that “we’ve got $18 trillion being invested in our country,” boasting at one other level within the speech that he had supposedly secured these investments in lower than a yr again in workplace. The $18 trillion determine is fiction. At the time Trump spoke, the White House’s own website mentioned the determine for “major investment announcements” throughout this Trump time period was “$9.6 trillion,” and even that could be a main exaggeration; a detailed NCS review in October discovered the White House was counting trillions of {dollars} in imprecise funding pledges, pledges that have been about “bilateral trade” or “economic exchange” slightly than funding within the US, and imprecise statements that didn’t even rise to the extent of pledges.
Economic progress: Trump falsely claimed, “We have the highest growth we have ever had.” The economic system did publish sturdy progress within the third quarter of 2025, the latest interval for which the info is out there – gross home product increased by an inflation-adjusted annualized fee of 4.3% – however that was the quickest fee since 2023, not near the quickest of all time. The economic system grew a lot quicker within the third quarter of 2020 and in 2021, for instance, because it emerged from the Covid-19 pandemic. Aside from the pandemic period, there was a lot quicker progress than there was in 2025 on various previous occasions.
Gas costs: Trump claimed that fuel costs are “under $2 in many places,” saying, “We have some states, it is $1.95, $1.99, $1.97.” This wants context. On Tuesday, there was no state with a median fuel value beneath $2 per gallon; the bottom common in any state was about $2.23 per gallon, in Oklahoma. There have been some particular person fuel stations beneath $2 per gallon, however a tiny proportion of the entire. The agency GasBuddy informed NCS that it discovered about 464 stations throughout the nation beneath $2 on Tuesday (other than particular reductions), about 0.3% of the roughly 150,000 stations the agency tracks.
Trump might pretty say fuel costs have fallen throughout this presidency, declining from a nationwide common of $3.08 per gallon on his inauguration day in January 2025 to a nationwide common of $2.82 per gallon on Tuesday.
Who pays tariffs: Talking about how he believes his tariff coverage is succeeding, Trump falsely claimed, “China is one of our biggest taxpayers right now. China, would you ever believe you would hear that?” Tariff funds on merchandise imported from China are made by US importers, not China itself, and importers typically cross on some or the entire added prices to the ultimate client.
Taxes on Social Security: Trump repeated his inaccurate declare that he had achieved “no tax on Social Security for our seniors.” The huge home coverage invoice Trump signed in 2025 did create an extra, momentary $6,000-per-year tax deduction for people age 65 and older (with a smaller deduction for people incomes $75,000 per yr or extra), however the White House itself has implicitly acknowledged that thousands and thousands of Social Security recipients age 65 and older will proceed to pay taxes on their advantages – and that new deduction, which expires in 2028, doesn’t even apply to the Social Security recipients who are younger than 65.
Fraud and the federal price range: Trump baselessly claimed that eliminating fraud in federal packages would steadiness the federal price range, saying, “If we stop this fraud, this massive fraud, we’re going to have a balanced budget.” The annual price range deficit far exceeds the estimated sum of money the federal authorities loses to fraud every year – an estimate Trump cited earlier within the Tuesday speech.
Trump appropriately mentioned that the federal government loses about half a trillion {dollars} to fraud. That’s the excessive aspect of a first-of-its-kind estimate the federal Government Accountability Office launched in 2024, which discovered that $233 billion to $521 billion is misplaced to fraud yearly. But the federal price range deficit got here in at just under $1.8 trillion for the latest fiscal yr, which resulted in September, in accordance with the Treasury Department – greater than triple the estimated fraud whole.
Trump and Michigan: Trump claimed, “We did good in Michigan,” then falsely added, “We won the whole thing in Michigan, didn’t we, huh? Three times we won. You know that, right? They didn’t give us credit the second time, but we won the second time.” Trump gained Michigan within the 2016 and 2024 presidential elections however misplaced to Joe Biden, honest and sq., within the 2020 election – by 154,188 votes, about 2.8 proportion factors. There is not any foundation for Trump’s solutions that the 2020 end result was fraudulent; in 2021, an investigation led by Republican state senators in Michigan found there was “no evidence of widespread or systematic fraud” in Michigan’s 2020 election.
Trump and the favored vote: Trump falsely claimed, “I won the popular all three times too,” including, “But we’re not gonna get into that.” Trump won the US popular vote in the 2024 election however misplaced it within the two earlier elections – by roughly 2.9 million votes within the 2016 election and by roughly 7.1 million votes within the 2020 election.
Immigration and international affairs
Migration beneath Biden: Trump criticized former Biden for “letting in 25 million people” as migrants. The “25 million” determine is fake; even Trump’s earlier “21 million” determine was a wild exaggeration. Through December 2024, the final full month beneath the Biden administration, the federal authorities had recorded beneath 11 million nationwide “encounters” with migrants throughout that administration, together with thousands and thousands who have been quickly expelled from the nation. Even including within the so-called gotaways who evaded detection, estimated by House Republicans as being roughly 2.2 million, there’s no means the entire was even near what Trump has mentioned.
Migration and homicide: Trump additionally repeated a declare that Biden allowed in “11,888” murderers as migrants. He was inaccurately describing federal information.
The Department of Homeland Security and independent experts have previously noted the determine it seems Trump was referring to when he makes use of the “11,888” quantity is about non-citizens who entered the US not just below Biden however over the course of a number of many years, together with throughout Trump’s personal first administration; have been convicted of murder in some unspecified time in the future, normally within the US after their arrival; and are nonetheless within the nation whereas being listed on Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s “non-detained docket.” The determine – which was round 13,000 when ICE launched it final yr – contains people who find themselves at the moment serving their jail sentences, not roaming free as Trump has additionally claimed. And it contains individuals who entered the nation legally in addition to individuals who entered illegally. You can learn extra here.
Venezuela, migration and prisons: Trump repeated a declare that could be a staple of his public remarks however that he has by no means confirmed: “One of the reasons I was so angry at Venezuela, they emptied their prisons almost entirely into the United States of America.”
There was large-scale emigration from Venezuela amid economic issues, violence and political turmoil through the Maduro period. But regardless of a number of requests for remark from NCS and different retailers, Trump and his aides haven’t confirmed that Venezuela emptied its prisons (or psychological well being amenities, as Trump has additionally claimed) to in some way ship undesirable residents into the US.
Roberto Briceño-León, founder and director of the Venezuelan Observatory of Violence, an unbiased group that tracks violence, mentioned in an e mail to NCS in June 2024: “We have no evidence that the Venezuelan government is emptying its prisons or mental health institutions to send them outside the country, in other words, to the U.S. or any other country.”
Helen Fair, an professional on world prisons at Birkbeck, University of London, informed NCS in 2024 that she had “seen absolutely no evidence” that any nation had emptied prisons to ship prisoners to the US, not to mention that quite a few international locations had performed in order Trump has claimed.
Panama Canal building deaths: Chastising former President Jimmy Carter for handing management of the Panama Canal to Panama, Trump mentioned, “Even though we lost 36,000 people to the mosquito, you know that, right? To the mosquito and a certain snake, which was not a very nice reptile.”
The US didn’t lose even near 36,000 folks constructing the canal. While the century-old data are imprecise, they show about 5,600 people died through the canal’s American building part between 1903 and 1914 – and “of those, the vast majority were Afro-Caribbeans,” similar to workers from Barbados and Jamaica, Julie Greene, a historical past professor on the University of Maryland and creator of the e book “The Canal Builders: Making America’s Empire at the Panama Canal,” informed NCS after Trump made such claims in 2025.
The late historian David McCullough, creator of one other e book on the constructing of the canal, found that “the number of white Americans who died was about 350.”
Thousands of extra staff, perhaps around 22,000, died through the French building part that preceded the American part. But Trump has explicitly said on earlier events that he’s speaking about US deaths specifically, and he used the phrase “we” this time.
Trump and wars: Trump repeated a well-known false declare about his position in international affairs: “I ended eight wars.” While Trump has performed a task in resolving some conflicts (not less than briefly), the “eight” determine is a clear exaggeration.
Trump has beforehand explained that his record of supposed wars settled features a struggle between Egypt and Ethiopia, however that wasn’t truly a struggle; it’s a long-running diplomatic dispute a few major Ethiopian dam project on a tributary of the Nile River. Trump’s record contains another supposed war that didn’t actually occur throughout his presidency, between Serbia and Kosovo. (He has typically claimed to have prevented the eruption of a brand new struggle between these two entities, offering few particulars about what he meant, however that’s completely different than settling an precise struggle.) And his record features a supposed success in ending a struggle involving the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, however that struggle has continued regardless of a peace settlement brokered by the Trump administration this yr – which was by no means signed by the main insurgent coalition doing the combating.
Trump’s record additionally contains an armed battle between Thailand and Cambodia, the place combating erupted again in December regardless of a peace settlement brokered by the Trump administration earlier in the year.
One can debate the significance of Trump’s position in having ended the opposite conflicts on his record, or pretty query whether or not some have actually ended; for instance, killing continued in Gaza after the October ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. Regardless, Trump’s “eight” determine is clearly too huge.
NCS’s Tami Luhby contributed to this text.