The author of Fake News boasts of creating fake news, as if doubling down on lies creates truth.
But his real goal in telling on Wednesday, some Missouri GOP donors an anecdote of lying to Justin Trudeau, was to show that he could, in a conversation, bully another nation’s leader by lying. How clever to bamboozle someone with made up numbers and to share that trickery with others.
Except it now turns out Trump made the instance itself up. And he’s wrong on the facts themselves.
How Meta!
The Canadians are actually puzzled about when such a meeting might have taken place or whether it was a phone call conversation.
Not the first time Prexy Dennison has invented stories and claimed they were real, except he seems to believe this detail makes no difference… especially in terms of international trade diplomacy.
According to figures provided by the Commerce Department, the US ran a $2.77 billion surplus with Canada for 2017. That figure includes oil and timber. It's unclear what Trump was referring to with the $17 billion figure.
Trade Balance
The U.S. goods trade deficit with Canada was $12.1 billion in 2016, The United States had a services trade surplus of $25 billion in 2016, $25-12.1=$12.9 (billion total surplus)
“Canada and the United States have a balanced and mutually beneficial trading relationship. According to their own statistics, the U.S. runs a trade surplus with Canada,” a spokesman for Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said
2/ they have these sorts of chats about the deficit/surplus once in a while. But this story - "Justin comes in," etc, etc, we send our officials out of the room, they come back in, I was right on trade...
Apparently it's a blend of different chats. And one person I heard from
3/ said this anecdote from Trump most resembles a chat they may have had by phone.
4/ So... this Trump anecdote about making up a fact on an allegedly made up trade metric might have been slightly... made up. Behold, a matryoshka doll of tall-tales
5/ Okay - have tried getting Canadians to chat about what happened in Trudeau/Trump meeting. No takers. They never get into details about POTUS/PM.
But I can report with certainty that there is some confusion in Ottawa about when/where this encounter is supposed to have happened
6/ Best I can glean is the story is a composite sketch of chats by phone, in person, and internally within the White House.
But not clear when there was ever a meeting where there was a debate, aides were sent out to find trade facts, and they came back in to prove POTUS right
7/ It certainly sounds from the way Trump tells it that this was supposed to have all gone down in one face-to-face meeting.
From the Washington Post transcript: "Trudeau came to see me... (He) comes in... I said you're wrong, Justin..."
8/ "He said, 'Nope, we have no trade deficit.' I said, 'Well, in that case, I feel differently, I said, but I don’t believe it.' I sent one of our guys out, his guy, my guy, they went out, I said, 'Check.'" (And the aides come back to the room, POTUS was right, US has deficit)