'Not even close to true': CNN rapid-fire fact-check busts Trump’s claims on international trade

06 May

Image via Screengrab / CNN.

After his solid victory in Canada's April 28 election, Liberal Prime Minister Mark Carney is planning to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump in the White House on Tuesday, May 6. And Carney is making it clear — in no uncertain terms — that Canada will maintain its sovereignty and has no desire to become, as Trump puts it, "the 51st state."

Canada's election became a referendum on Trump's trade war with Canada and his "51st state" rhetoric, and Carney's decidedly anti-Trump stand played a key role in his victory over Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre.

Tuesday, ahead of the White House meeting, CNN's Daniel Dale gave Trump's claims about Canada an aggressive fact-check.

Trump claims that Canada is a high-tariff county, but Dale told his colleague, Kate Bolduan, "The facts are that Canada is a low- tariff country. The last international data we have from 2022 (that) the World Bank published: Canada was 102nd on a list of 137 countries. Average tariffs. One of the countries it had lower average tariffs than: the United States. Now, President Trump often makes this claim in the context of Canada's agricultural tariffs. He highlights Canada's high dairy tariffs. He does not mention that those high dairy tariffs only kick in after a certain quantity of tariff-free U.S. exports to Canada — a certain quantity negotiated in his own USMCA are hit, and that the U.S. is not even close to hitting those maximum quantities."

Dale continued, "He also does not mention that the U.S. Department of Agriculture itself says on its website that almost all U.S. agricultural exports to Canada are tariff-free and barrier-free. So the milk stuff, the dairy stuff — that exists, but again, there are exemptions. And number two, those are the exception, not the rule."

During a recent interview with NBC News' Kristen Welker, Trump claimed that Canada spends "practically less money on military than practically any nation in the world."

But according to Dale, that claim is "not even close to true."

Dale told Bolduan, "There's a think tank based in Sweden that tracks international military spending. Canada is the 16th highest military spender in the world. So the president used the word practically here. But practically or not, Canada is not even close to the world's lowest military spender."

Watch the full video below or at this link.

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