Fact Check: Trump Inflates GDP Growth
In an interview with The Sun in England, President Donald Trump claimed “the GDP since I’ve taken over has doubled and tripled.” It hasn’t. Not even close.
Trump’s false claim was made to support his argument that the U.S. shoulders an increasing amount of the burden for NATO because the country’s GDP is rapidly rising, making its contributions to defense relative to other NATO allies even more unfair.
In addition to the GDP claim being wildly off, his entire premise is muddled. For starters, a rising GDP has no effect on how much the country spends on defense.
Before we unravel all this, though, here are Trump’s comments, first at a press conference in Brussels after the NATO summit:
