The Wall Street Journal revealed an op-ed on Friday below the identify of President Donald Trump. Trump criticized specialists who warned that his tariff insurance policies would trigger financial destruction, writing that “the spectacular economic numbers coming out every single day” are proof that he was proper and so they have been unsuitable.
But Trump’s rosy case was primarily based partly on figures which are plain false or extremely deceptive, utilizing cherry-picked starting and ending factors for numerous calculations to serve the president’s argument. And a few of his qualitative claims have been additionally inaccurate.
Here is a reality test.
Trump repeated his common false declare that in lower than one yr again in workplace, “we have secured commitments for more than $18 trillion” in new funding within the US, “a number that is unfathomable to many.” The quantity will not be solely unfathomable however factually incorrect. As of Tuesday, 4 days after the op-ed got here out, the White House’s own website stated 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” somewhat than funding within the US, and imprecise statements that didn’t even rise to the extent of pledges.
Trump precisely famous that gross home product grew by an annual rate of 4.4% within the third quarter of 2025, however then he stated that, regardless of the affect of the autumn authorities shutdown, “the fourth quarter is projected by the Atlanta Fed to be well over 5%, a number like our country has not seen in many years.” While the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow mannequin was estimating fourth-quarter 2025 development of more than 5% simply over per week in the past, the latest update from the mannequin, launched 4 days earlier than Trump’s op-ed was revealed, was right down to 4.2%. Also, another estimates suggest fourth-quarter growth was decrease than 4.2%.
Trump didn’t outline “many years,” however 4.2% development within the fourth quarter of 2025 could be the quickest since the third quarter of 2023, throughout the Biden administration, other than the 4.4% development within the third quarter of 2025 below Trump.
Trump claimed that, in an unimaginable achievement, “we have slashed our monthly trade deficit by an astonishing 77% — all with virtually no inflation, which everyone said could not be done.” We’ll tackle the “virtually no inflation” declare under, however the declare of a 77% decline within the commerce deficit is deceptive — an obvious reference to a one-time decline in October that shortly reversed in November.
Here are three large the explanation why the “77%” declare is deceptive.
1) The commerce deficit jumped in November after a pointy fall in October. The commerce deficit — the distinction between the worth of products and providers imported to the US and items and providers exported from the US — has been risky this yr amid the commerce turmoil attributable to Trump’s tariff insurance policies. In October, the deficit fell sharply to just $29.2 billion, the lowest for any month since 2009. This was down about 77% from January 2025, the month Trump returned to workplace, and down about 39% from September.
But specialists cautioned that the sharp October decline was prone to show short-lived, the results of non permanent fluctuations within the commerce of prescription drugs and gold. And the deficit then spiked in November, jumping 95% back up to $56.8 billion. The November determine was nonetheless 56% decrease than the January 2025 determine, however 56% will not be 77%.
The November determine was released the day earlier than Trump’s op-ed was revealed. (It’s not clear when Trump’s crew submitted it to the Journal.)
2) January 2025 is a flawed start line. January 2025 had the biggest commerce deficit on file to that time, $128.8 billion. Trump solely returned to workplace on January 20, 2025, however specialists extensively attributed the enormous deficit determine that month to a corporate rush to import merchandise to the US forward of the massive tariffs Trump had promised as a candidate. So evaluating any current month-to-month determine to January 2025 — or to February and March 2025, when the import rush continued — is sure to indicate a big decline.
3) The general commerce deficit has been greater in 2025 than it was in 2024. Through November, the whole items and providers commerce deficit in 2025 was $839.5 billion. That’s up 4% from the 2024 deficit by way of November, $806.6 billion. So though Trump was not less than directionally right within the op-ed when he wrote that “American exports are up by $150 billion” — by way of November 2025, items and providers exports have been about $185 billion greater than they have been by way of the identical interval in 2024 — he didn’t point out that the rise in imports was even larger, about $219 billion by way of November.
Trump wrote that “the stock market has skyrocketed” since “Liberation Day,” April 2, 2025, when he introduced he was imposing sweeping international tariffs (a lot of which he ended up paring again). It’s true that the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the market index he talked about within the op-ed, had elevated about 17% between its shut on “Liberation Day” and this Monday, February 2, 2026 — however Trump didn’t point out that many international inventory markets have outperformed the Dow over the identical interval.
For instance, Japan’s Nikkei 225 was up about 47%, China’s SSE Composite up about 20%, South Korea’s Kospi Composite up about 98%, Canada’s S&P/TSX Composite up about 27%, and the United Kingdom’s FTSE 100 up about 20%.
Trump wrote, “Factory construction is up by 42% since 2022.” Trump’s selection of 2022 as his start line for this calculation is deceptive provided that the op-ed was purporting to offer proof of the success of his tariffs: he took workplace and imposed the tariffs in 2025, when spending on manufacturing unit development truly declined from 2024. The spike above the 2022 numbers largely occurred in 2023, below President Joe Biden, as you possibly can see in this chart.
“It’s interesting (Trump) would take credit for something that transpired during the Biden administration,” Anirban Basu, chief economist for development trade group Associated Builders and Contractors, stated in a Monday interview. Basu stated that after Biden signed two main 2022 legal guidelines, the Inflation Reduction Act (which promoted clear power and electrical automobile manufacturing) and the CHIPS and Science Act (which promoted semiconductor manufacturing), there was a growth in manufacturing unit development spending — however the information reveals “that boom ends in 2025.”
The federal data set a White House official stated Trump was citing right here reveals that whole US spending on manufacturing development was down about 5% within the first 10 months of 2025 in comparison with the identical interval in 2024, the final calendar yr of the Biden administration, and that it fell for 9 consecutive months in 2025 by way of October. Basu stated Trump’s tariff insurance policies look like one of many main causes for the 2025 decline, leaving firms with much less capital to doubtlessly pursue enlargement and inflicting a lot of them to undertake a wait-and-see method in response to tariff ranges that may change significantly at a moment’s notice.
Trump’s declare within the op-ed was not less than extra clear than the same declare he made in his January tackle to the World Economic Forum in Davos, when he said “factory construction is up by 41%” with out explaining he was utilizing 2022 as the place to begin.
But the op-ed didn’t point out the decline in manufacturing jobs on this presidential time period up to now. Through December 2025, the financial system had shed 63,000 manufacturing jobs since January 2025 — and was down 72,000 manufacturing jobs since April 2025, the month of “Liberation Day.”
Biden and actual wealth
Trump claimed that by inflicting an inflation disaster, Biden and his allies in Congress value “the typical American family $33,000 in real wealth.” But this determine is deceptive: actual wealth elevated considerably for the center class, in addition to all different teams, in case you have a look at Biden’s presidency from starting to finish. Trump’s declare a few decline in actual wealth for the “typical” household is correct provided that you have a look at a mere fraction of Biden’s presidency.
“There was a dip in 2022-2023 but a clear rebound in 2024,” Emmanuel Saez, a University of California, Berkeley economics professor who research the difficulty, informed NCS on Monday.
When NCS requested the White House the place it obtained the declare of a $33,000 discount in actual wealth, an official responded by saying it was from an analysis by Senate Republicans on how a lot the typical family had paid in further prices due to Biden-era inflation. But that doesn’t make sense; you merely can’t monitor “real wealth,” which measures property versus liabilities, by inflation-related spending.
It seems attainable that the White House, like Trump’s 2024 campaign, truly obtained the $33,000 determine from a Bloomberg report in July 2023 that famous that tracking by Saez and Berkeley colleagues discovered that, for the reason that Federal Reserve had started raising interest rates in March 2022, common actual wealth had dropped greater than $33,000 per middle-class family.
Saez stated his crew didn’t replace the tracker after 2023, however he stated the longer-term image will be seen in public Federal Reserve data – which shows that wealth for the center class bounced again sharply over the course of 2023 and 2024, ending Biden’s presidency at a a lot greater degree than the place it began.
Bloomberg’s report outlined center class as households within the fiftieth to ninetieth percentile, so we’ll do the identical. These households had about $37.5 trillion in total real wealth within the first quarter of 2021, Biden’s first in workplace, and about $48.4 trillion within the fourth quarter of 2024, Biden’s final full quarter in workplace, in keeping with the Federal Reserve information.
Trump boasted of the inventory market repeatedly setting file highs since he was elected once more in 2024, then added that this has occurred “with virtually no inflation.” He gave himself some fact-check wiggle room with the phrase “virtually,” however the US actually has inflation. In December 2025, common client costs have been up 2.7% from December 2024, Consumer Price Index figures present. Trump additionally claimed within the op-ed that “inflation has fallen dramatically” regardless of a pointy enhance in tariff charges, however that 2.7% year-over-year price was solely barely decrease than the 2.9% rate of December 2024, Biden’s final full month in workplace, and the 3.0% rate of January 2025, the month of Trump’s inauguration.
And whereas Trump attributed the 40-year excessive in US inflation (9.1% in June 2022) solely to the Biden administration’s “trillions of dollars in wasteful spending” and “extremist green energy agenda,” the actual story is extra difficult.
Inflation’s rapid ascent, which started in early 2021, was the results of a confluence of factors. Those included results of the Covid-19 pandemic, corresponding to snarled supply chains, and geopolitical points, notably together with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, that brought about shocks in power and meals costs. Heightened consumer demand boosted partly by pandemic-era fiscal stimulus from each the Trump and Biden administrations additionally led to greater costs.
Trump and wars
Trump repeated his common false declare that “in nine months, I settled eight raging conflicts, WARS,” saying that “tariffs deserve much of the credit.” While Trump has performed a task in resolving some wars (not less than quickly), the “eight” determine is a clear exaggeration.
Trump has beforehand explained that his listing 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 listing additionally contains another supposed war that didn’t actually occur throughout his presidency, between Serbia and Kosovo. (He has generally 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 listing features 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 in 2025 — which was by no means signed by the main insurgent coalition doing the combating.
Trump’s listing additionally contains an armed battle between Thailand and Cambodia, the place combating quickly erupted again in December regardless of a peace settlement brokered by the Trump administration earlier in 2025.
Trump claimed that “with the help of tariffs, we have cut that federal budget deficit by a staggering 27% in a single year.” But the White House arrived at this “27%” determine by calculating adjustments within the deficit in an atypical manner, particularly by cherry-picking handy begin and finish dates.
A White House official informed NCS on Monday that it obtained the “27%” determine by evaluating the cumulative deficit from February 2025 (Trump’s first full month again in workplace) to November 2025 with the cumulative deficit over the identical February-to-November interval in 2024. The deficit throughout the 2025 interval was about $1.4 trillion, or roughly $516 billion lower than it was in 2024. That equates to a 27% discount.
To ensure, the rise in federal income from Trump’s tariff adjustments helped slim the finances hole. The authorities took in a complete of $229 billion in internet customs duties, which embody tariffs, between February and November of 2025.
However, the everyday technique of measuring adjustments within the deficit is to match one full fiscal yr to the following. The deficit dipped by $41 billion, or 2.3%, in fiscal yr 2025 (which ended September 30) in comparison with fiscal yr 2024, a a lot smaller change than the one Trump cited.
The 2025 fiscal yr, which began October 1, 2024, included most of the final 4 months of the Biden administration. But Trump’s methodology isn’t simply eliminating the Biden months, additionally it is choosing a particular interval the place the finances hole was unusually slim.
There are a number of one-time the explanation why the deficit dropped throughout the first 10 months of the Trump administration, in keeping with Chris Towner, coverage director for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a fiscal watchdog group.
The federal authorities was shut down for about six weeks throughout October and November 2025, which delayed some federal spending and funds —quickly decreasing the scale of the month-to-month finances deficits. That spending will likely be subsequently mirrored within the months the funds have been finally made.
Also, as a result of February 1 fell on a weekend in 2025, the funds due that day have been made on the finish of January, decreasing federal spending for February. Plus, the interval the White House selected contains $130 billion in one-time financial savings from the coed mortgage adjustments within the One Big Beautiful Bill Act Trump signed in 2025, although these measures don’t take impact immediately.
What Trump didn’t point out is that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office expects that the deficit discount received’t final lengthy. The hefty tax cuts and will increase in protection and homeland safety spending within the laws are anticipated so as to add a complete of $4.1 trillion (together with curiosity funds) to the deficit over the following decade, according to the CBO.