Donald Trump has marked the 100th day of his second term with a campaign-style rally in Michigan – but his speech included exaggerated and misleading information.
Fact-checkers have been analysing his statements and matching it up with official data and trends.
Inflation
The president claimed his administration had “already ended inflation”, but last month the Bureau of Labor Statistics said while the rate slowed in March, it had in fact risen over the past year to 2.4%.
A bureau report said inflation was subsiding before Mr Trump’s tariffs were introduced.
The tariffs plunged financial markets into turmoil and have stoked fears of high inflation and even a recession.
Inflation started falling long before Mr Trump started his second term.
It peaked at 9.1% in June 2022 after rising steadily in the first 17 months of Joe Biden’s presidency from a low of 0.1% in May 2020 as the world went through the COVID pandemic.
And as of last December, it had fallen to 2.9%.
Torsten Slok, chief economist at Apollo Global Management, said he sees a 90% chance of a recession by this summer if Mr Trump’s tariffs remain in place.
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Tariffs
Mr Trump again celebrated his controversial move on world tariffs, saying “I think it’s going to work out” – but that still does not appear to be the verdict of economists and market experts.
On Wednesday, data showed the US economy shrank 0.3% from January to March – representing the first drop in three years.
The latest figures are despite Mr Trump inheriting a solid economy that had been growing steadily.
American businesses are cancelling orders from China and postponing expansion plans – and experts believe the taxes could bring emptier shelves and higher prices for US shoppers within weeks.
And while he’s placed a 10% levy on products from almost every country in the world, Mr Trump hit China with a staggering 145% tariff.
China, which responded with 125% tariffs on US products, is America’s third-biggest trading partner and second-biggest source of imported goods.
Gene Seroka, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, has said that within two weeks, arrivals to the port “will drop by 35% as essentially all shipments out of China for major retailers and manufacturers has ceased”.
Ocean container bookings from China to the US have also dropped 60%, say cargo companies, who said they have been forced to cancel 25% of sailings with orders down.
Petrol prices
Mr Trump wrongly claimed there had been a huge fall in petrol prices.
He said: “Gasoline was almost $4 not so long ago. And now … we just hit $1.98 in a lot of states.”
But latest figures, released on Wednesday by the American Automobile Association, show the average price across the US stands at $3.18.
As of this week, no state has recently had an average gas price of $1.98.
Mississippi currently has the lowest average price at $2.669 per gallon of regular gas – far higher than Mr Trump’s claim.
Cost of eggs
Another product Mr Trump claimed had become cheaper was eggs.
“Since I took office, the cost of eggs is down 87% now,” he told the crowd.
Wholesale egg prices fell significantly in March, but not by 87%.
They were at a high of $8.17 for a dozen large eggs on 3 March and had dropped to $2.92 by 26 March – a decrease of approximately 64%.
However, the retail price of a dozen large eggs has been on the rise since October 2024.
Economists said that because wholesale prices did not start dropping until mid-March, grocery stores may not have immediately passed on the lower prices.
Coal production
The 78-year-old American leader said: “We stopped their crusade on coal. Did you see what I did the other day? Clean, beautiful coal.”
Although the production of coal is cleaner than it has been historically, it does not mean it can be described as “clean”.
Planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions from the coal industry have decreased over the past 30 years, according to the US Energy Information Administration.
It is true that coal-fired electricity is cleaner than ever – but experts agree worldwide coal production needs to be significantly reduced to address climate change and its growing impact.
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Read more:
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Fact-checking Trump’s address to Congress
Border crossings
Mr Trump said “we have set all-time records for the lowest number of illegal border crossings”.
According to US Customs and Border Protection, figures for March were the “lowest southwest border crossings in history”.
The government-run agency, which directly praised Mr Trump during the release of the figures, claims data shows there were 7,180 crossings – down from what it says was a monthly average of 155,000 over the previous four years.
