FactChecking Trump’s El Paso Rally

Summary

President Donald Trump made several claims in his Feb. 11 political rally in El Paso that distorted the facts, including:

• He said “the trade deficit really went down very big this last month,” leaving out the fact that the previous month was a 10-year high. The 12-month deficit is up 20 percent under his presidency.
• Trump wrongly claimed he convinced South Korea to increase its shared cost of the U.S. military presence in South Korea from $500 million to $900 million a year. South Korea was already paying well over $800 million a year under a five-year agreement that expired in December, and it reached a tentative agreement to increase its contribution by 8.2 percent.
• Pushing back on fact-checkers and others who cited FBI data to debunk his claim that a fence transformed El Paso into one of the safest cities, Trump said crime data was recorded differently and that there was an attempt to “pull the wool over everybody’s eyes.” But there is no evidence of doctored data.
• The president noted there were 1,200 murders last year in the Mexican city of Juarez, compared with 23 just across the border in El Paso. But despite drug-related murder rates across the border, the number of murders in El Paso has long been relatively low.
• Trump also repeated several claims we’ve debunked before on job growth, Veterans Affairs legislation, the “right to try” law and a Virginia abortion bill.

Analysis

The president held a campaign rally in El Paso to again make his case for a border wall, as members of Congress debated a border security and spending bill to avoid another government shutdown. Both chambers are expected to vote on a measure today.

Trump again repeated false claims about crime in El Paso before and after a border fence was built, adding some new twists to his talking points. But he also made misleading and false statements about the trade deficit and an agreement with South Korea on its contribution to the U.S. military presence there.

Trade Deficit Spin

The president that the trade deficit had declined thanks to his efforts. In fact,