Fact Check: Did Trump announce $110 trillion trade deal with China?
WASHINGTON, DC: A rumor is circulating on social media platforms claiming that President Donald Trump has announced a trillion-dollar trade deal with China. The claim surfaced after Chinese President Xi Jinping visited the United States, sparking speculation and questions about the post’s authenticity and prompting a fact-check.
Claim: Donald Trump announced $110 trillion trade deal with China
The rumor spread in the form of a screenshot, claiming to show a post by Trump on his official Truth Social platform.
The alleged post began with, “We finished our trade talks with President Xi, who was practically BEGGING me! Tears in his eyes, top negotiators weeping in the back of the room!”
It went on to say, “He said, 'Donald, please, we need your highest quality, supreme American manufactured goods!’ He wanted our world-famous soy beans, our premium chicken feet, our elite pig ears, and our beautiful, clean, scrubbed-by-hand American COAL!"
"I said, ‘Mr. President, it's going to cost you!’ And we locked it in: $10 TRILLION DOLLARS A YEAR for the next 10 years! That is massive, high-IQ total of $110 TRILLION DOLLARS straight into our pockets!"
"The Dumbocrats don't know math like I know math-they can't handle those kinds of numbers! And then he begged me for one more thing."
"He said, ‘Please let us build giant electric car factories in America!’ I told him, ‘ONLY if it's 100% US-made by our great American workers, but paid for 100% WITH CHINA MONEY!’"
"They put up all the cash, we keep all the jobs and all the factories! Unbelievable deal! Nobody has ever seen anything like it!”
Fact Check: Donald Trump made no such post
The claim, however, is false, as no such post exists on any of Trump’s social media handles. A search on his official Truth Social handle for relevant keywords yielded no results.
If Trump had really made such a post, it would not have gone unreported by prominent news media outlets, given the massive amount mentioned in the screenshot.
But a search on Google to check if Trump has announced such a trade deal outside of social media also yielded no results.
Moreover, the screenshot was posted by a satire account called ‘Mrs Putin,’ whose username appears as a watermark in the screenshot.
The screenshot also includes several other clues of fabrication, such as a fake date and Trump's username being ‘Donald J. Turmp.’
