Trump points to $5.1 trillion in investments from the Middle East that aren't exactly real
At an Oval Office event on Wednesday, a reporter asked Donald Trump why he never followed through on his threats to impose economic sanctions on Russia. The president never quite got around to answering the question, but he did seem eager to emphasize a completely unrelated point.
'I went to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and [the United Arab Emirates], and we brought back $5.1 trillion,' Trump claimed. 'So, I made that money in about two hours, the money that we're talking about.' After briefly suggesting — without a shred of evidence — that Ukraine has misused U.S. security aid, the Republican went on say, 'I'm more interested because I picked up $5.1 trillion and, by the way, got a beautiful big, magnificent free airplane for the United States Air Force, OK? Very proud of that, too.'
For now, let's not dwell on the fact that the plane from Qatar wasn't free, and it's proving to be far more controversial than the White House cares to admit. Let's instead consider that statistic the president is apparently quite excited about.
If the '$5.1 trillion' figure sounds at all familiar, that's because Trump can't seem to stop talking about it. He referenced it a week ago when unveiling the 'Make America Healthy Again' report, which came two days after he pushed the same line during a visit to Capitol Hill, which came one day after he repeated the talking point at the White House.
For reasons unknown, the president went on to say last week that the figure might even be '$7 trillion' at some undetermined point in the future.
To be sure, the boast certainly sounds impressive. Americans are apparently supposed to believe that Trump went to the Middle East, met with some officials for 'about two hours' and left with investments so enormous, they represent roughly a sixth of the United States' GDP.
But that's not what happened.
For one thing, as The Washington Post reported, Trump has started referring to Biden-era foreign investments as his own, pretending that they're new and that he deserves credit for them. The Post's report added:
The math behind the White House's claim that Trump secured 'trillions' on this trip is fuzzy even including the contracts that predate his presidency. The sum of the deals is under $1 trillion, but the White House is also counting announcements it made months before the trip, including a vague plan that the UAE said would result in $1.4 trillion in investment in the United States over the next decade. The UAE and White House previously announced that deal in March. The White House did not explain why its announcements included deals that predate Trump's presidency.
Around the same time, The New York Times took a closer look at the data and reported, 'The list of some of the agreements published by the White House left many details vague. The value of the agreements appeared to total about $283 billion.'
If those investments happen, terrific. But they might not happen, and $283 billion is a small fraction of $5.1 trillion.
What's more, as MSNBC's Paul Waldman wrote in a piece for Public Notice, some of the money Trump referenced might materialize in future decades. It led Waldman to conclude that the presidential claims amounted to little more than 'smoke and mirrors.'
The problem, however, is not just that Trump keeps talking up an investment figure that isn't real. The problem is made worse by the way that the president appears to be making plans to spend some of the money that doesn't exist.
At an Oval Office event last week, Trump was asked whether his wildly unrealistic 'Golden Dome' idea might be prohibitively expensive. He responded, 'We can afford to do it. You know, we took in $5.1 trillion in the last four days in the Middle East, and when you think about it, this is a tiny fraction of that.'
But therein lies the point: Trump didn't take in $5.1 trillion, so making plans to devote those imaginary resources to a missile shield project that won't work is an enormous problem.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
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Yahoo
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- Yahoo
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Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, said the public should take Kennedy at his word. 'He's right. We shouldn't trust him,' Benjamin said. 'He's unbridled. He's out of control, and so I am fearful that he will do more to undermine vaccine access and quality in the United States.' The Hill: Kennedy's autism crusade ignores history, including his own family's. HIGHER ED: Harvard University, amid its battle with the Trump administration over free speech and academic and administrative independence, is feeling the heat to tap its $53 billion endowment as the government withholds federal research grants and attempts to block enrollment of international students. But on multiple fronts, that move would be more difficult than many people realize, The Hill's Lexi Lonas Cochran reports. 'It's not like a bank account… The idea is that you'll have it sort of forever so that you can take income from it and fund some activity, but you could do that forever. So not just for students today, but for students in the future,' said Sandy Baum, a nonresident senior fellow at the Urban Institute. ELSEWHERE © Associated Press | Markus Schreiber UKRAINE: Negotiators from Moscow and Kyiv are set to meet today for another round of peace talks to end the three-year war sparked by Russia's full-scale invasion. Both sides are expected to formally exchange their respective conditions for a deal. Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly said he will only accept a settlement on his terms and will keep fighting until they're met — pummeling Ukraine with waves of missiles and drones. Kyiv, meanwhile, launched drone strikes deep inside Russia on Sunday, targeting dozens of strategic bombers at several bases. 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Call it a wellness break, a publisher or book club gimmick or a magnificent excuse to socialize in paradise. The upshot: Planned escapes can include reading as a goal, including the social dividend of comingling with others who love books, enjoy talking about books, favor book clubs and/or swoon over certain genres, celebrities and authors. Want to know more? It can be a girls trip idea. There are websites that specialize in booking such getaways, plus crowd-sourced reviews of reading retreats and even pop-up events nationwide at hotel chains, such as Sheraton. Stay Engaged We want to hear from you! Email: Alexis Simendinger (asimendinger@ and Kristina Karisch (kkarisch@ Follow us on social media platform X (@asimendinger and @kristinakarisch) and suggest this newsletter to friends!
