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As seen in our research, news sources that are known to be more conservative support republican candidates while liberal news sources fight against the republican candidates. This portrays a strong bias and lead to "fake news"

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The man who predicted 49 out of 50 states in 2012 has said who will win on Tuesday
The man who predicted 49 out of 50 states in 2012 has said who will win on Tuesday
A survey from the Princeton Election Consortium has found that Hillary Clinton has a 99 per cent chance of winning the election over Donald Trump. Three days before the election, Ms Clinton has a projected 312 electoral votes, compared to 226 for Mr Trump. A total of 270 electoral votes are needed to win.
the independent

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How can you be sure that the news you consume is true?

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How can you be sure that the news you consume is true?

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- Check multiple news sources
- Fact check
- Use reliable sources
- Inspect sources for loaded language and bias

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The hill is conservative and makes Trumps plan sound better than liberal sources

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The hill is conservative and makes Trumps plan sound better than liberal sources

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Republican Sen. Susan Collins Susan Margaret Collins Overnight Tech: Judge blocks AT&T request for DOJ communications | Facebook VP apologizes for tweets about Mueller probe | Tech wants Treasury to fight EU tax proposal Overnight Regulation: Trump to take steps to ban bump stocks | Trump eases rules on insurance sold outside of ObamaCare | FCC to officially rescind net neutrality Thursday | Obama EPA chief: Reg rollback won't stand FCC to officially rescind net neutrality rules on Thursday MORE (Maine) on Wednesday sought to explain her vote for the GOP tax-reform plan in an op-ed in a Maine newspaper, saying "it will help lower-income and middle-income families."

"I have heard a number of conspiracy theories from pundits, political operatives and columnists about why I supported the tax cut plan that just became law. I thought that the best way to respond would be just to tell you directly," Collins wrote in The Portland Press Herald.

"I supported this legislation because it will help lower-income and middle-income families keep more of their hard-earned money, boost the economy and encourage businesses, both small and large, to grow and create jobs here in Maine and around the country," she wrote.

Every Republican senator present voted for the tax legislation last week, and President Trump Donald John Trump Accuser says Trump should be afraid of the truth Woman behind pro-Trump Facebook page denies being influenced by Russians Shulkin says he has White House approval to root out 'subversion' at VA MORE signed it into law Friday.

Collins, a moderate who voted against Senate Republicans' legislation to repeal ObamaCare, was the subject of particularly strong attacks from the left because she supported the final tax bill even though the Senate had not yet voted on ObamaCare bills she says will help stabilize the insurance market.

Collins had said she received assurances from Senate leadership that the bipartisan ObamaCare bills would get votes before the end of the year, but in the end, she voted for the tax-reform plan without them.

In her op-ed, Collins said most Maine households would see lower taxes and criticized liberals who argued that they would not benefit much from an $1,000 cut. She also highlighted changes that she secured to the bill, such as restoring a limited state and local tax deduction after the original Senate bill scrapped it.

"Hardworking Americans will soon see more money in their paychecks," she wrote. "In the future, Americans will continue to see more benefit from this law in the form of higher wages."

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Collins pens op-ed explaining tax bill vote

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Former President Barack Obama resurfaced on Friday and took a shot at Fox News viewers, saying they're "living on a different planet" than people who consume mainstream media.

Obama made the remarks on the premiere of the new monthly Netflix series "My next guest needs no introduction with David Letterman," which hit the streaming service on Friday morning. Early in the episode, Obama asked Letterman about his retirement but the veteran talk show host quickly let the former president know who was boss.

"Now here's how this is gonna work. I'm gonna ask you stuff, and then you respond to stuff," Letterman joked.

Letterman then asked Obama what he considers the more dangerous threat to a democracy, the president demeaning the press or a foreign power sabotaging the voting process. Both options are clearly jabs at President Trump and Obama answered without mentioning the current president's name.

"One of the biggest challenges we have to our democracy is the degree to which we don't share a common baseline of facts," Obama said. "If you watch Fox News, you are living on a different planet than you are if you are listening to NPR."

"If you watch Fox News, you are living on a different planet than you are if you are listening to NPR."
- Barack Obama

The response got a big round of applause from the presumably liberal crowd at the City College of New York. Obama has a long history of taking shots at Fox News but the recent comment marks his first public attack on the network and its viewers since leaving the White House.

While Trump is often criticized for attacking the media and labeling CNN as "fake news," Obama's comment is a reminder that the White House and the press have sparred for decades. Obama once even accused Fox News of "attacking" his administration during an interview with CNBC.

Letterman said goodbye to his long-running talk show two years ago and has launched a six-episode series on Netflix. In each hour-long episode, Letterman conducts a long-form conversation with a single guest, and explores topics of his own outside the studio.

George Clooney, Malala Yousafzai, Jay-Z, Tina Fey, and Howard Stern are scheduled to be guests on Letterman's show over the next five months.

Brian Flood covers the media for Fox News. Follow him on Twitter at @briansflood.

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Obama rips Fox News viewers: 'You are living on a different planet'

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Former President Barack Obama resurfaced on Friday and took a shot at Fox News viewers, saying they're "living on a different planet" than people who consume mainstream media. Obama made the remarks on the premiere of the new monthly Netflix series "My next guest needs no introduction with David Letterman," which hit the streaming service on Friday morning.

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Economists Credit Trump as Tailwind for U.S. Growth, Hiring and Stocks

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Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal say President Donald Trump has had generally positive effects on U.S. economic growth, hiring and the performance of the stock market during his first year in office.

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As seen on this source the stats support Trump, but on other sources they are against him

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A Fox News Poll conducted at the end of President Trump's first year in the White House finds more voters rate the economy positively today than have in nearly two decades.

And they give the White House credit for that: nearly twice as many say the Trump administration has made the economy better than made it worse: 40 percent vs. 22 percent. One-third says the administration has not made a difference (34 percent).
READ THE COMPLETE POLL RESULTS.
Approval of the job the president is doing on the economy is above 50 percent for the first time.

Trump's overall approval stands at 45 percent, while 53 percent disapprove. That comes close to matching his highest ratings, which he received soon after taking office: 48-47 percent (February 2017). His low point was in the previous Fox News Poll, when 38 percent approved and 57 percent disapproved (October 2017).

The new poll, released Wednesday, was taken Sunday through Tuesday. The three-day federal government shutdown started Saturday, which was day 365 of the Trump administration. A funding agreement was reached Monday and the government reopened that evening.

Since taking office, approval of Trump has mostly held steady with his key supporters. For example, 86 percent of Republicans approve today and 87 percent approved a year ago. Fifty-eight percent of white men approve vs. 60 percent last year. And approval among white evangelical Christians stands at 74 percent vs. 76 percent last year.

Some of the recent improvement in Trump's overall job rating undoubtedly comes from the economy. The poll finds 49 percent now give it positive ratings (excellent or good). The last time this many voters felt as positively was 17 years ago (59 percent, January 2001).

In addition, a record 17 percent say the economy is in "excellent" shape. That's up from 6 percent in August and 3 percent in December 2016. In trend going back to 1998, the previous high was 13 percent in June 2000.

Still, voters feel there's room for improvement in general. A majority, 53 percent, remains unhappy with the direction of the country. Forty-five percent are satisfied with the way things are going in the country today -- that's the same number as felt that way at the 100-day mark of the Trump administration (April 2017).

Nearly half (46 percent) think the country is worse off than it was a year ago, while a large minority (40 percent) say it is better off, and 11 percent say there has been no change.

On the family level, 39 percent say they are better off today than a year ago -- almost double the 20 percent who say they are worse off. Many, 38 percent, feel their situation is the same.

"There is some evidence here that President Trump is starting to realize some of the political benefits of robust economic growth," says Daron Shaw, the Republican pollster who conducts the Fox News Poll along with Democrat Chris Anderson. "But the connection is tenuous now and the White House would be wise to carefully nurture it in advance of the November elections."

Despite the bullish economic news, voters are bearish on giving Trump a second term. While 35 percent would vote to re-elect him, a 56 percent majority would back someone else. These sentiments are almost identical to those in April, after he had been in office three months (36-55 percent).

Forty-eight percent of voters say they would "definitely" vote for someone else. The largest number saying that during the Obama administration was 42 percent (August 2011).

Among Trump voters, 52 percent would "definitely" re-elect him. Fewer of Barack Obama's voters, 43 percent, said they would "definitely" re-elect him at his one-year mark.

Obama's overall re-elect number at this point was 43 percent (January 2010).

"The economy might be doing great, but that isn't the only thing that matters to Americans," says Anderson, "Political divisiveness at home is a big concern -- nearly on par with a war with North Korea."

Health care is the top concern to voters: 82 percent are extremely or very concerned about it.

Three-quarters worry about political divisions within the country (74 percent), while about 7 in 10 are concerned about the opioid crisis (72 percent), the nation's infrastructure (71 percent), the economy (71 percent), war with North Korea (70 percent), and race relations (70 percent).

Majorities also worry about taxes (68 percent), attacks by Islamic terrorists (65 percent), sexual harassment in society (65 percent), illegal immigration (64 percent), and climate change (57 percent).

Among Democrats, the top concerns are health care (92 percent concerned), race relations (85 percent), and climate change (84 percent). For Republicans, it's illegal immigration (77 percent), attacks by Islamic terrorists (72 percent), and health care (71 percent).

The president's best ratings are on the economy, and for the first time a majority approves of the job he's doing (51-41 percent). He's also in positive territory for his handling of terrorism (48-43 percent).

He receives net negative job ratings on immigration (40-54 percent), health care (40-51 percent), and government spending (40-52 percent). His worst ratings are on North Korea (38-54 percent) and race relations (32-58 percent).

The number saying Trump is a strong leader has dropped significantly. Forty-two percent describe him that way, down from 52 percent a year ago -- and a high of 59 percent in May 2016. Over half, 52 percent, now say he is not a strong leader.

In addition, 44 percent are confident in Trump's judgment in a crisis, down from 50 percent when he took office (February 2017).
Pollpourri

Democrats (32 percent) are the top pick for blame for the government shutdown, however slightly more voters blame either Republicans (24 percent) or President Trump (13 percent). Another 24 percent point the finger at both Democrats and Republicans equally.

The new tax law gets mixed reviews: 38 percent approve vs. 37 percent disapprove, with 25 percent unable to rate it. Approval jumps to 59 percent among the subgroup that feels they understand the law at least somewhat well (54 percent of voters). Thirty-six percent of those familiar with the law, and 27 percent overall, think their taxes will go down under the law.

Voters favor allowing illegal immigrants under age 30 who were brought to the U.S. as children to stay in the country legally (71 percent favor vs. 20 percent oppose), and oppose building a U.S.-Mexico border wall (40 percent favor vs. 53 percent oppose).

Views split, 42-43 percent, over whether the Trump campaign coordinated with the Russian government during the election. Most Democrats say it did (74 percent) and most Republicans say it didn't (80 percent). Six months ago, views were also split: 43-43 percent (July 2017).

13 percent approve of Trump's tweeting, while 35 percent "wish he'd be more cautious." Forty-eight disapprove, down from a record 57 percent in October. Most Republicans want him to either take more care (52 percent) or approve (25 percent), while most Democrats disapprove (75 percent).

The Fox News poll is based on landline and cellphone interviews with 1,002 randomly chosen registered voters nationwide and was conducted under the joint direction of Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R) from January 21-23, 2018. The poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points for all registered voters.

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Fox News Poll: As Trump ends year one, record number rate economy 'excellent'

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A Fox News Poll conducted at the end of President Trump's first year in the White House finds more voters rate the economy positively today than have in nearly two decades. And they give the White House credit for that: nearly twice as many say the Trump administration has made the economy better than made it worse: 40 percent vs.

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A survey from the Princeton Election Consortium has found that Hillary Clinton has a 99 per cent chance of winning the election over Donald Trump.

Three days before the election, Ms Clinton has a projected 312 electoral votes, compared to 226 for Mr Trump. A total of 270 electoral votes are needed to win.

The probability statistic was found by the university's statistical Bayesian model.

The developer of the model, neuro and data scientist Princeton professor Sam Wang, correctly predicted 49 out of 50 states in 2012.

Other polls were less bullish on a Clinton victory. FiveThirtyEight said the likelihood Ms Clinton would win was 65 per cent, while the New York Times upshot said there was a 85 per cent chance.

As for Democrats taking back control of a Republican-led senate, the Princeton Election Consortium projected a 78 per cent likelihood, while FiverThirtyEight and the New York Times both estimated a 55 per cent chance.

FiveThirtyEight founder Nate Silver wrote on Friday that Ms Clinton had been on a downward trajectory this week, but in the last few days the polls have become "more equivocal".

"National polls tend to suggest that Donald Trump's momentum has halted, and that Clinton may even be regaining ground," he wrote.

But state-wide polls have less good news for Ms Clinton. Data shows the candidates are tied in New Hampshire, while her lead in Pennsylvania is down to just three percentage points. The numbers in Michigan have been tightening, Mr Silver said, while New Mexico has become a "state to watch".

As of Friday, more than 33 million voters have already cast their ballot in the election.

Also on Friday, two key court rulings aimed to fight voter suppression.

In North Carolina, the federal court ruled in favour of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and ordered thousands of recently removed names from the election rolls to be restored.

In Ohio, a judge ordered the Trump campaign to not intimidate voters or carry out exit polls at voting booths, giving some relief to Democrats who were concerned their opponents would cause mayhem on Tuesday.

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The man who predicted 49 out of 50 states in 2012 has said who will win on Tuesday

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A survey from the Princeton Election Consortium has found that Hillary Clinton has a 99 per cent chance of winning the election over Donald Trump. Three days before the election, Ms Clinton has a projected 312 electoral votes, compared to 226 for Mr Trump. A total of 270 electoral votes are needed to win.

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On Wednesday, 107 Republican members of the House of Representatives sent a letter to the president expressing concern about broad tariffs and calling for him to focus any action on unfair trading partners, like China.

"We are committed to acting with you and our trading partners on meaningful and effective action," the letter said. "But we urge you to reconsider the idea of broad tariffs to avoid unintended negative consequences."

The administration began talking more openly on Wednesday about exemptions for countries that satisfy certain conditions, backing away from the bazookalike approach Mr. Trump announced last Thursday in a hastily arranged meeting with steel and aluminum executives.

[ READ MORE: How Trump's Steel Tariffs May Threaten Allies and Economic Growth]

In an interview on Wednesday afternoon with Fox Business, Wilbur Ross, the secretary of commerce, said countries would be exempted if it served American national security interests. "It's defined to include effect on employment. It's defined to include effect on individual industries. It's not the conventional definition of national security," he said.

Mr. Trump appears to be taking advantage of the vacuum created by the resignation of Mr. Cohn, who was the plan's loudest opponent, to push the tariffs through. Mr. Cohn, who argued that tariffs would create a global trade war, found himself overshadowed by a group of more protectionist-minded advisers who have urged the president to follow through with the get-tough pledges he made during his campaign.

Those advisers have been in ascendence, including Mr. Navarro, a trade skeptic who had been sidelined by Mr. Cohn. Mr. Navarro was recently promised a promotion and made the rounds on Sunday talk shows to promote Mr. Trump's trade policy. Mr. Ross succeeded in moving up last week's announcement, over the objections of Mr. Cohn. Robert Lighthizer, the United States trade representative who has pushed trading partners to accede to the country's demands, has become a trusted adviser to the president.

That group has a much more binary view of trade, seeing it as a zero-sum game in which the United States is losing. The advisers have pushed the president to withdraw from trade deals like Nafta and to carry out the type of stiff tariffs that Mr. Trump seems poised to impose on steel and aluminum imports. They see the United States' ballooning trade deficit, which hit a nine-year high on Wednesday, as evidence that more needs to be done to put the country on the winning end of global trade.

The rise of the populist faction is already fanning fears on Wall Street and among foreign officials that Mr. Trump could start and escalate a global trade war or take a more combative stance toward trading partners and international groups like the World Trade Organization. Foreign officials viewed Mr. Cohn as a reliable ally on global economic issues and as someone who could express their views to the president.

The prospect of approaching tariffs has set off furious lobbying from governments around the world, who have tried to sway the administration with offers of friendship and threats of retaliation. On Wednesday, the European Union released a list of American-made goods it would penalize if the tariffs went through.

China cautioned that it was prepared to "make an appropriate and necessary response" should the United States impose the tariffs.

"Choosing a trade war is a mistaken prescription," China's foreign minister, Wang Yi, said during a news conference on Thursday in Beijing. "In the end, you will only hurt others and yourself."

Many companies and unions, including the United Steelworkers, have pushed for Canada to be exempted from the plan. The country is the largest source of both steel and aluminum for the United States, and many companies have operations stretching across its border. Jim Mattis, the defense secretary, has also urged Mr. Trump to proceed cautiously, particularly with regard to allies.

"Hopefully as the administration works their way through the application of these tariffs, they'll look at targeted tariffs against the worst violators," said Leo Gerard, the president of the United Steelworkers.

But others close to the administration pushed back against the idea of exclusions. Dan DiMicco, a trade adviser to Mr. Trump during his campaign and a former executive at Nucor Corporation, a steel firm, said he did not see recent comments about potential exclusions to be "an indication of some massive change in an approach to a fixed tariff across the board."

"The one thing they have committed to is having an exclusion process for certain products," Mr. DiMicco said. "But there's been nothing to indicate they're backing away and going to be granting mass exclusions for countries."

The United States plans to impose the tariffs by utilizing a little-used legal provision that allows the president to take action to defend national security. The administration argues that imports have degraded the industrial base necessary for the United States to make tanks, weapons and other military products.

But trade lawyers say that linking Canada and Mexico's exemptions to Nafta, as the administration is doing, could ultimately open the United States up to more legal challenges at the World Trade Organization. If Canada and Mexico could be excused from the tariffs for reasons unrelated to national security, that brings the administration's entire rationale into question. If the World Trade Organization rules against the United States, it is unclear whether the Trump administration would listen to the ruling, or move to leave the organization.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada, speaking before Mr. Navarro made his comments, sounded cautious about the possibility of an exemption.

"We know from experience that we need to wait and see what this president will actually do," Mr. Trudeau said in Toronto.

Terry Sheehan, a Liberal member of Parliament from Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, a northern city economically dependent on a steel mill, said he spent most of Wednesday calling American lawmakers to make Canada's case for an exemption.

"Until we hear the president saying that there is an exemption, we will continue to do what we're doing," he said.

Mexican officials continued to say they would retaliate if the United States pressed ahead with tariffs. On Wednesday, top Mexican officials met with Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law and senior adviser, as he paid a state visit to President Enrique Peña Nieto at the presidential residence in Mexico City. It was unclear if tariffs came up.

The Mexican foreign minister, Luis Videgaray, has developed a close working relationship with Mr. Kushner, but the repeated contacts between the two have failed to sway Mr. Trump's policies toward Mexico, characterized by a crackdown on undocumented immigrants, an insistence on building a wall on the southern border and repeated threats to pull out of Nafta.

Mr. Kushner and Mr. Videgaray had been planning on a meeting between the two presidents, but the arrangement collapsed last month after a testy phone call between the two leaders.

As the White House prepared for a formal rollout, people familiar with the deliberations urged caution. They pointed to an event last week, when Mr. Trump called an impromptu news conference at which he announced that he intended to place tariffs of 25 percent on imported steel and of 10 percent on imported aluminum.

The tariffs would fulfill a key campaign promise for the president, and it has garnered support from metal companies, from unions and from Rust Belt politicians. United States Steel Corporation announced Wednesday that it planned to reopen a blast furnace at a plant in Granite City, Ill., to support an increased demand for American steel that they expect as a result of the tariff.

The Federal Reserve, in its latest anecdotal survey of businesses across the country released on Wednesday, said several regions "saw a marked increase in steel prices, due in part to a decline in foreign competition."

In a sign of how Mr. Trump's tariffs, once enacted, could affect a broader section of the economy, the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland said in a report that steel producers said they were raising prices, in part because of expectations about pending trade cases. The report added that manufacturers further down the supply chain - like food packagers and others who use steel - "reported sizable increases in the price of steel that they purchased."

Thomas J. Donohue, the president the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said his group was "very concerned about the increasing prospects of a trade war," which he said would put recent economic gains at risk.

"We urge the administration to take this risk seriously and specifically to refrain from imposing new worldwide tariffs on steel and aluminum," he said.

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Trump Prepares to Formalize Tariffs but Floats Exemptions

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On Wednesday, 107 Republican members of the House of Representatives sent a letter to the president expressing concern about broad tariffs and calling for him to focus any action on unfair trading partners, like China. "We are committed to acting with you and our trading partners on meaningful and effective action," the letter said.

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Fact Check

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fact check

The president's claims about enormous trade deficits, tariffs and the World Trade Organization are overstated and contradicted by his own economic report.

This was updated on March 7, 2018.
In defending his embrace of steep tariffs - and in comments that seem to encourage a trade war - President Trump has repeatedly claimed enormous trade imbalances, unfair practices and an international system that benefits everyone but the United States.

Mr. Trump's promises to fix the problems he has identified through an aggressive trade agenda has appeared to unnerve markets, which fell when they opened on Wednesday. Thedip came after Gary D. Cohn, the director of the National Economic Council, announced on Tuesday his plans to resign amid an internal White House struggle over Mr. Trump's plan to impose large tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.

Regardless, Mr. Trump's trade claims are often overstated and contradicted by his own economic council.Here is a fact-check of recent comments that Mr. Trump has made on trade deficits, the World Trade Organization and tariffs.

From Bush 1 to present, our Country has lost more than 55,000 factories, 6,000,000 manufacturing jobs and accumulated Trade Deficits of more than 12 Trillion Dollars. Last year we had a Trade Deficit of almost 800 Billion Dollars. Bad Policies & Leadership. Must WIN again! #MAGA
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 7, 2018

"From Bush 1 to present, our Country has lost more than 55,000 factories, 6,000,000 manufacturing jobs and accumulated Trade Deficits of more than 12 Trillion Dollars." - March 7 post on Twitter

This needs context.

From January 1989 to January 2018, the number of manufacturing jobs in the United States has decreased by about 5.5 million. There also were about 77,000 fewer domestic manufacturing factories, workshops and what the Census Bureau terms as "establishments" in 2014 - the latest year with available data - than in 1989.

But it's not accurate to attribute all of these declines to trade, even if globalization clearly did contribute. Economists say technology had a role to play, too. As New York Times reporter Claire Cain Miller has written for the Upshot, multiple studies have found that industries like steel, computers and electronics were hit hard by automation.

"Last year we had a Trade Deficit of almost 800 Billion Dollars." - March 7 post on Twitter

This is exaggerated.

Mr. Trump has cited this figure more than 50 times since 2015.

A White House spokesman said the $800 billion deficit figure that Mr. Trump has cited refers to the trade balance in goods. The Department of Commerce reported a $810 billion deficit in goods in 2017, but a total trade deficit of $566 billion that includes a trade surplus in services.

Mr. Trump's preoccupation with trade in goods contradicts his own White House economic report, which he signed and was released in February.

The United States' economy has shifted"away from manufacturing and toward service provision industries" in recent decades, according the report. "Focusing only on the trade in goods alone ignores the United States' comparative advantage in services."

Like most developed countries, the United States is primarily a services economy, said Scott Lincicome, a trade analyst at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. And American service sectors - like accounting, finance, technology, engineering and law - are globally dominant.

"By focusing only on goods, you make it seem far weaker than it actually is," Mr. Lincicome said. Doing so also means "ignoring a large, growing and vibrant part of the economy," he said.

"We have a deficit of approximately $500 billion a year with China." - March 6 remarks

This is exaggerated.

Even if Mr. Trump is referring only to the trade deficit in goods, he is off by more than $100 billion. The Commerce Department reported a deficit of $375 billion in goods with China in 2017.Overall, the United States had a net deficit of $309 billion in 2016.

"We have massive trade deficits with Canada and Mexico." -March 5 post on Twitter

Partly true.

In fact, the United States had a total trade surplus of $7.7 billion with Canada in 2016, and a surplus of $4.4 billion through the third quarter of 2017.

"Massive" is a matter of opinion, but the United States did have a trade deficit of $63 billion with Mexico in 2016, and $52.2 billion through the third quarter of 2017.

"If the E.U. wants to further increase their already massive tariffs and barriers on U.S. companies doing business there, we will simply apply a Tax on their Cars which freely pour into the U.S. They make it impossible for our cars (and more) to sell there. Big trade imbalance!" - March 3 post on Twitter

False.

The European Union imposes a 10 percent tariff on American-made cars, while the United States' tariff against imported European cars is just 2.5 percent. But that doesn't mean American cars are "impossible" to sell in Europe.

The United States is the third largest car exporter in the world, sending almost 70,000 cars toBritain, France, Norway and Switzerland in 2014, according to the Commerce Department. The Observatory of Economic Complexity at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology reported that the United States exported $11.8 billion in cars to Europe in 2016.

"When a country (USA) is losing many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with, trade wars are good, and easy to win." - March 2 post on Twitter

This is exaggerated.

Actually, the United States had a trade surplus with five out of 15 major trading partners in 2016, including Brazil ($22 billion), Singapore ($18 billion) and Britain ($14.7 billion).

Mr. Trump's economic report also cautioned against counting trade deficits as losses or as a metric of economic health. It argued that deficits reflect myriad factors, including the strength of the dollar.

"The United States has been able to sustain a trade deficit in part because of the role of the U.S. dollar in the global economy," according to the report. "Foreigners are happy to hold U.S. dollars and dollar-denominated assets, which they obtain by selling more goods and services to Americans than they buy."

And as The New York Times' economic correspondent Jim Tankersley has reported:

"Most economists do not see the trade gap as money 'lost' to other countries, nor do they worry about trade deficits to a large degree. That's because trade imbalances are affected by a host of macroeconomic factors, including the relative growth rates of countries, the value of their currencies, and their saving and investment rates. For instance, America's trade deficit narrowed dramatically during the Great Recession, when national consumption faltered."

"We put tariffs on washing machines coming into the country. ...Now we have plants being built; put a 30 percent tariff on." - March 1 listening session

This confuses certain tariffs and exaggerates their impact.

Mr. Trump slapped steep tariffs on imported washing machines and solar panels in January. He appears to have mixed up the rates for the two products.

Solar panels face a 30 percent tariff. The first 1.2 million washing machines that are imported in 2018 face a 20 percent tariff; that levy grows to 50 percent against every machine afterward that comes into the United States. Those penalties are gradually phased down in the second and third year of the three-year tariff program.

Complaints by Whirlpool Inc. about its Korean competitors prompted the White House action. It has since said it added 200 jobs to a plant in Ohio in anticipation of demand resulting from the tariffs. It has not announced construction of any new plants.

Samsung and LG Electronics have said they will accelerate plans to open plants in the United States following the tariff announcement. But Samsung announced its plans to build a factory in South Carolina last June and LG said it would build a new facility in Tennessee in February 2017.

"But the World Trade Organization makes it almost impossible for us to do good business.We lose the cases, we don't have the judges.We have a minority of judges." - Feb. 26 speech to governors

This is misleading.

Mr. Trump's claims of bias are contradicted by his own economic report.

The United States has won more cases than the global average. According to the White House report, "the United States has won 85.7 percent of the cases it has initiated before the W.T.O. since 1995, compared with a global average of 84.4 percent. In contrast, China's success rate is just 66.7 percent."

In cases where the United States is the respondent, "it still wins 25 percent of the time, a rate that is better than the global average rate of 16.6 percent," the report noted. That rate is far better than the rates of the European Union and Japan (which have never won a case brought against them) and China (which has won only 5.3 percent of the time).

Correction:

Because of an editing error involving a satirical text-swapping web browser extension, an earlier version of this article misquoted a passage from an article by the Times reporter Jim Tankersley. The sentence referred to America's narrowing trade deficit during "the Great Recession," not during "the Time of Shedding and Cold Rocks." (Pro tip: Disable your "Millennials to Snake People" extension when copying and pasting.)

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A9 of the New York edition with the headline: Exaggerated And Misleading Claims on Trade. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe

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President Trump's Exaggerated and Misleading Claims on Trade

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fact check The president's claims about enormous trade deficits, tariffs and the World Trade Organization are overstated and contradicted by his own economic report. This was updated on March 7, 2018.

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Here's what happened in Trump's White House the day he said there was 'no chaos' - CNN Politics

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President Donald Trump tweeted Tuesday morning that there's "no chaos" in his White House.

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Watch a Brief History of Clinton's Campaign Ads

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Hillary Clinton spent more than $245 million airing campaign ads this election.

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Watch Hillary Clinton's Final Campaign Ad

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Hillary Clinton is making the closing argument of the presidential election on prime time television on Monday night.

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Comments on the president of China, strong bias

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"He's now president for life. President for life. No, he's great," Mr. Trump said of Mr. Xi to the Republican donors, at a luncheon at Mar-a-Lago. Then he went on seemingly to express interest in doing the same thing in the United States so that he too could rule forever. "And look, he was able to do that. I think it's great. Maybe we'll have to give that a shot some day."

Mr. Trump was surely joking about becoming president for life himself. But there can be little doubt now that he truly sees no danger in Mr. Xi's "great" decision to extend his own rule until death. That craven reaction is in line with Mr. Trump's consistent support and even admiration for men ruling with increasing brutal and autocratic methods - Vladimir Putin of Russia, Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, to name a few.

Mr. Trump certainly needs to find ways to work with Mr. Xi on major international challenges. But past presidents have combined efforts to deepen relations with China with advocacy for expanding human rights there. Mr. Trump clearly sees no national interest or responsibility in trying to promote democracy. On the way to amassing more power for himself, Mr. Xi has moved to crush all rivals, silence all dissent, undermine Chinese institutions, promote a cult of personality, weaken the free market economy, destroy any hint of an independent press and otherwise tighten control over a society that is already among the world's most restricted.

As for Mr. Trump's line about becoming president for life: His audience was said to respond with laughter, and let's hope it was nervous laughter. They and we have reason for anxiety. It's not too much to say that as the authoritarian model gathers strength abroad, democracy is under assault at home. The Russian government meddled in the 2016 election to help elect Mr. Trump, and American intelligence agencies have said they anticipate further Russian interference in the midterms this year. Mr. Trump has remained strangely indifferent to this meddling.

He has also proven ignorant of and impatient with checks on presidential power, whether they be courts that thwart his unconstitutional actions or a Justice Department that won't jump to his orders to investigate political rivals.

When you consider that Mr. Trump lost the popular vote by almost three million ballots, claiming the presidency only through the antidemocratic mechanics of the Electoral College - not to mention with some help from Russia - it may be understandable that he would be uncomfortable with democracy. Ultimately it will be up to the American voter, in 2018 and then 2020, to fulfill Washington's hopes for the resilience of the American system.

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russian interference in 2016 us elections and ties to trump associates

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Opinion | Donald Trump Sure Has a Problem with Democracy

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"He's now president for life. President for life. No, he's great," Mr. Trump said of Mr. Xi to the Republican donors, at a luncheon at Mar-a-Lago. Then he went on seemingly to express interest in doing the same thing in the United States so that he too could rule forever.