Though the proceedings were ostensibly about the coronavirus, President Donald Trump used Monday’s press briefing to push an odd claim about his stewardship of the budget.
As part of his argument that he oversaw the development of the greatest economy in world history prior to the coronavirus reaching US shores and wrecking things, Trump claimed that “if you look, prior to this virus, the deficit was coming down under my administration.” He said this was due to him putting “massive tariffs on China” — tariffs that resulted in America “taking in tens of billions of dollars” from the country he’s now trying to blame for the pandemic.
(Update: A reader pointed out that when Trump’s reference to “the deficit” is read in context of the question he was responding to about China, he may have been referring to the trade deficit specifically with China and not the national deficit. While the trade deficit with China did shrink last year to $345.6 billion from a record of $419.5 billion it hit under Trump’s leadership in 2018, data shows that instead of buying things domestically, Americans just turned to other foreign countries to buy things.) Continue reading.