POTUS’ bizarre boast on trade creates a surplus of doubt
Does “telling it like it is” include bragging that you faked it?
President Donald Trump posed this variation on the liar’s paradox for the first time by recalling a conversation he says he had with Canadian President Justin Trudeau.
Trump said Trudeau told him Canada doesn’t enjoy a trade surplus against the U.S.
“Wrong, Justin, you do,” Trump said he replied.
“I didn’t even know,” Trump confided to guests at a GOP fundraiser this week. “I had no idea.”
That’s right. His own words suggested he had no idea if there was a deficit or surplus with Canada, but that he intuitively insisted the U.S. is on the short end.
Trump said he sent someone out of the room to check it out. This person came back, supposedly, and said: “Well, sir, you’re actually right.”
“We have no deficit, but that doesn’t include energy and timber and when you do, we lose $17 billion a year. It’s incredible.”
Incredible, for sure. As told, this account from the “tell-it-like-it-is” president makes little to no sense.
For starters, why would anyone say “we have no deficit” yet we do if “energy and timber” are included?
Further, as of Thursday morning the president’s own trade office was reporting trade balances favoring the U.S.
From its website: “The U.S. goods and services trade surplus with Canada was $12.5 billion in 2016.”
Trump’s own Office of the U.S. Trade Representative says this — not the Mexicans, not the Democrats, not the news media and not the “deep state.”
Trump has got a wee bit of wiggle room right here.
Strictly in terms of goods, there was a $12 billion deficit, according to the website. But it was greatly outweighed by U.S. exports of services to Canada.
Maybe the president thought he was talking only about goods. Maybe he wasn’t. Given his record of falsehoods, you have to wonder if the person he “sent” from the room even existed. Or if the exchange with Trudeau even happened as told.
As for where he got “$17 billion,” well, your guess would seem to be as good as Trump’s.
Since he doesn’t tend to elaborate on the facts of any situation, Trump took to Twitter to defend himself once word of his bizarre story — recorded on audio — had spread.
“We do have a Trade Deficit with Canada, as we do with almost all countries (some of them massive),” he tweeted.
“P.M. Justin Trudeau of Canada, a very good guy, doesn’t like saying that Canada has a Surplus vs. the U.S. (negotiating), but they do . . . they almost all do . . . and that’s how I know!”
No wonder his lawyers want to keep him from meeting with special counsel Robert Mueller.
Fortunately for the president, campaign donors at a fundraiser don’t tend to demand accuracy.
Dan Janison is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
