AP FACT CHECK: Trump on trade, Islamic State, vets, Clinton

In this March 20, 2018, photo, President Donald Trump speaks to the National Republican Congressional Committee March Dinner at the National Building Museum in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
In this March 20, 2018, photo, President Donald Trump speaks to the National Republican Congressional Committee March Dinner at the National Building Museum in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

WASHINGTON-President Donald Trump isn't always bringing genuine statistics to the fight as he goes after China on trade.

Trump stretched credulity on a variety of subjects over the past week, trade among them. He mangled comments from 2016 presidential rival Hillary Clinton, inflated expectations of an overhaul in health services for veterans and gave his administration too much credit for defeating the Islamic State. Here's a look at some of his recent statements.

TRUMP: "Last year we lost $500 billion on trade with China. We can't let that happen."-comments at the White House on Friday.

THE FACTS: That didn't happen. Last year, Americans bought about $506 billion in goods from China. That's not "lost" money but purchases of products that Americans wanted. And it's only part of the equation. China bought more than $130 billion in goods from the U.S. So the actual trade deficit in goods was $375 billion.

Factor in trade in services and the actual U.S trade deficit with China was $337 billion.

 

TRUMP: "On terrorism, in Iraq and Syria, we've taken back almost 100 percent, in a very short period of time, of the land that they took. And it all took place since our election. We've taken back close to 100 percent."-National Republican Congressional Committee dinner Tuesday. Comments Friday: "We've gotten just about 100 percent of our land back from ISIS."

THE FACTS: It's not true that progress against the Islamic State group "all took place" since the election. The Obama administration said IS had lost more than 40 percent of its territory by the time the last president left office.

IS was pushed to the point of collapse in Mosul, its main Iraqi stronghold, before Trump took office. In 2016, Iraqi military forces, supported by the U.S.-led coalition, waged successful battles to oust IS from Fallujah, Ramadi, eastern Mosul and a number of smaller towns along the Tigris River. They also established logistical hubs for the push that began in February 2017 to retake western Mosul.

It's true that advances since then have decimated IS as a territorial force. Those advances came on many fronts from multiple foes of the Islamic State, including U.S.-backed Iraqi forces and fighters of Syrian President Bashar Assad, supported by Russia. The assertion that "we've taken back close to 100 percent" is only supportable if "we" means the various groups, often hostile to one another, that have been battling IS.

 

TRUMP: "Republicans also repealed one of the nation's cruelest and most unfair taxes ever: the Obamacare individual mandate. And the mandate is gone forever. And that's a beauty. You pay a lot of money not to have to pay and not to get health care. So you're paying not to have health care. I mean, that wasn't so good. But we got rid of it."-Republican dinner Tuesday.

THE FACTS: The mandate is not gone. Fines for going without health insurance coverage are still in effect this year. They disappear next year under the repeal law he signed.

 

TRUMP: "Choice is coming. Choice-where the veterans can actually, instead of waiting on line for weeks and weeks and weeks, they can actually go and see a doctor and have it taken care of, and we pay. And that's going to be the big one."-Republican dinner Tuesday.

THE FACTS: A long-term plan along these lines doesn't appear to be coming any time soon. It's stalled in Congress and delays experienced in the program so far mean it won't be fully implemented until 2019
or later.

A choice program was put in place after a 2014 wait-time scandal that was discovered at the Phoenix VA hospital and elsewhere throughout the country. It allows veterans to go to private doctors if they endure long waits for VA appointments. According to the Government Accountability Office, Congress' investigative arm, people using the program suffer wait times potentially as long as 81 days. Last summer, an unexpected budget shortfall in the program forced VA to limit outside referrals, leading to additional delays in medical care.

VA Secretary David Shulkin said last month VA care is "often 40 percent better in terms of wait times" compared with the private sector.

He hoped a long-term overhaul would be approved by Congress in December, but proposals have stalled due to disagreements over cost and how much access veterans should have to private doctors.

 

TRUMP, on Clinton: "I would say her last statement about women-they have to get approval from their husbands, their sons, and their male bosses to vote for Trump. That was not a good statement. Not good."-Republican dinner Tuesday.

THE FACTS: That's not what she said. In remarks this month in India, Clinton advanced the theory that a slim majority of white women voted for Trump because of "ongoing pressure to vote the way that your husband, your boss, your son, whoever, believes you should." She did not say women felt they needed approval from men to vote for Trump-but rather that they faced pressure from them to side with Trump instead of her.

 

Associated Press writers Matthew Perrone, Bradley Klapper and Christopher Rugaber in Washington and Carla K. Johnson in Seattle contributed to this report.

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