CNN demolishes 7 of Trump's most 'unfathomable' lies about his second term

U.S. President Donald Trump looks on in the Oval Office on the day he signs an executive order, at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 23, 2025. REUTERS/Kent Nishimura

President Donald Trump recently penned an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal entitled "My Tariffs Have Brought America Back." A team of CNN fact-checkers are now alleging that many of the president's claims in the op-ed don't measure up to scrutiny.

In a Tuesday article, CNN's Daniel Dale, Alicia Wallace and Tami Luhby zeroed in on nine specific claims Trump made about his second term agenda, noting that they were "based in part on figures that are plain false or highly misleading, using cherry-picked beginning and ending points for various calculations to serve the president’s argument." They also wrote that some of Trump's "qualitative claims" were false.

1. Foreign investment in the US

CNN pointed out that Trump's claim of $18 trillion in foreign investment in the United States was "not only unfathomable but factually incorrect." The network observed that even the White House website quotes a $9.6 trillion figure, though that included "trillions of dollars in vague investment pledges, pledges that were about 'bilateral trade' or 'economic exchange' rather than investment in the US, and vague statements that didn’t even rise to the level of pledges."

2. High GDP growth estimates

The Trump administration has frequently touted a 4.4 percent GDP growth rate from the third quarter of 2025, and has claimed that the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta is projecting fourth-quarter growth in excess of five percent.

"While the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow model was estimating fourth-quarter 2025 growth of more than 5 percent just over a week ago, the latest update from the model, released four days before Trump’s op-ed was published, was down to 4.2 percent," the fact-checkers wrote. "Also, some other estimates suggest fourth-quarter growth was lower than 4.2 percent."

3. Lowering the trade deficit

Trump claimed in his op-ed to have lowered the trade deficit by 77 percent, and that he did so "with virtually no inflation." CNN noted that Trump got that figure from "a one-time decline in October that quickly reversed in November." The 77 percent October decline was reportedly after fluctuations in the trade of gold and pharmaceutical products, which jumped 95 percent higher the following month.

"The November figure was still 56 percent lower than the January 2025 figure, but 56 percent is not 77 percent," CNN wrote.

The network further reported that Trump's starting point of January 2025 for measuring the trade deficit is misleading, as many companies went on a buying spree in expectations of the massive tariffs Trump ran on. In fact, CNN found "the overall trade deficit has been higher in 2025 than it was in 2024."

4. Stock prices since Trump's"Liberation Day" tariffs

In April of 2025, Trump announced sweeping tariffs on virtually all of the United States' trading partners. He claimed in his op-ed that since then, the stock market has "skyrocketed," with the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 17 percent since April of last year. CNN reported that while that figure is accurate, Trump omitted the fact that many foreign stock exchanges have significantly out-performed the Dow in that same time frame.

"For example, Japan’s Nikkei 225 was up about 47 percent, China’s SSE Composite up about 20 percent, South Korea’s Kospi Composite up about 98 percent, Canada’s S&P/TSX Composite up about 27 percent, and the United Kingdom’s FTSE 100 [is] up about 20 percent," CNN wrote.

5. New factory construction in the U.S.

The president argued that factory construction in the U.S. has increased by 42 percent since 2022, which CNN found curious, as the premise of his op-ed was about the tariffs he imposed last April. By the time Trump announced the "Liberation Day" tariffs, factory construction had actually gone down. And as the network reported, the bulk of that 42 percent increase happened in 2023, when former President Joe Biden was still in office. Many of those new factories were due to both the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS and Science Act.

"It’s interesting (Trump) would take credit for something that transpired during the Biden administration," Associated Builders and Contractors chief economist Anirban Basu told CNN. "... That boom ends in 2025.

6. "Real wealth" during the Biden administration

Trump asserted that under Biden's presidency, the "typical" American household lost an average of "$33,000 in real wealth." But one leading economist said that figure is only accurate during one brief moment of Biden's time in office. In actuality, "real wealth increased significantly for the middle class, as well as all other groups, if you look at Biden’s presidency from beginning to end," per CNN.

"There was a dip in 2022-2023 but a clear rebound in 2024," said Nobel-winning economist Emmanuel Saez.

7. Inflation under Trump

The president wrote in his op-ed that he lowered the trade deficit with "virtually no inflation," which CNN observed was untrue, though the network said Trump's use of the word "virtually" gave him some wiggle room. Between December of 2024 and December of 2025, average consumer prices increased by roughly 2.7 percent. Trump also hammered Biden on overseeing an inflation rate of 9.1 percent, which was the highest in 40 years. However, CNN wrote that Trump's attribution of that rate to "trillions of dollars in wasteful spending" and an "extremist green energy agenda" was inaccurate.

"Inflation’s rapid ascent, which began in early 2021, was the result of a confluence of factors. Those included effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, such as snarled supply chains, and geopolitical issues, notably including Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, that caused shocks in energy and food prices," CNN wrote. "Heightened consumer demand boosted in part by pandemic-era fiscal stimulus from both the Trump and Biden administrations also led to higher prices."

Many Americans have not bought Trump's explanation for higher prices. A January CBS/YouGov poll found that 74 percent of Americans believe Trump is not focused enough on inflation, while 76 percent of respondents said their income has not kept up with the pace of inflation.

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