Trump Had No Use for Economic Numbers Until He Started a Trade War with Canada

Donald Trump, apparently tired of lying about everything else, decided to go after U.S. economic growth in 2016, claiming via Twitter that that cause is “trade deficits,” no doubt a defense of his incredibly reckless trade war with Canada.

The U.S. recorded its slowest economic growth in five years (2016). GDP up only 1.6%. Trade deficits hurt the economy very badly.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 26, 2017

On Friday, the Commerce Department said that the U.S. economy grew at an annual rate of 1.6% in 2016. This morning, those numbers Trump has repeatedly mocked both during his campaign and since becoming president, suddenly became critical because of his, if you’ll pardon the expression, “trumped” up trade war with Canada.

Lou Dobbs, of course, was quick to hail Trump’s tweet:

Trump is the first President to acknowledge our trade deficits cut rate of economic growth #AmericaFirst @POTUS #MAGA #TrumpTrain #Dobbs https://t.co/66Da4imMOc

— Lou Dobbs (@LouDobbs) April 26, 2017

However, Toronto Star fact checker Daniel Dale was on the ball and caught it right away, and Trump’s tweet certainly raised his eyebrows:

This makes no sense at all. https://t.co/Cq5UHjIOG2

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) April 26, 2017

In fact, during the last quarter of 2016, the economy grew at a rate of 1.9 percent after growing 2.6 percent in 2015 and 2.4 percent in 2014. And the Bureau of Economic Analysis says the “Real gross domestic product (GDP) increased at an annual rate of 2.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2016.”

Donald Trump claimed he would introduce America to steady 4 percent economic growth, a fantasy according to most economists. But on the whole, Trump has ridiculed numbers, and they only seem to suddenly matter when they’re convenient to some point or another.

Numbers don’t work that way. They always matter. Set aside for a moment the essential hypocrisy of Trump’s anti-trade rhetoric.

Trump’s attempt to delegitimize all the many numbers that are unfavorable to him, and to latch on to what few help him, is doomed to failure because numbers always matter, whether you “believe in them” or not.

Trump makes a big deal of low economic growth in 2016 but that economic growth was growing in the last 3 months of the Obama presidency and you can be sure if it had been higher he would have just as gladly taken credit for it rather than condemning it, just as he has taken credit for other of Obama’s economic achievements.

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Hrafnkell Haraldsson

Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen's Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.

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