'Wild exaggeration': CNN reporter fact checks Trump’s latest economic 'lie'

On Tuesday, at the opening of the NATO summit in Turkey, President Donald Trump made a claim about the U.S. economy under his leadership that a CNN reporter immediately called out as a “lie.”

"We've had probably the best year ever had by an American president,” Trump asserted during a press event with Turkish President Recep Erdogan. “We have the greatest economy we've ever had. We have $19.2 trillion being invested in the United States. It's a world record."

CNN reporter Daniel Dale wasn’t having it, posting, “For the many-th time, Trump's ‘$19.2 trillion’ figure is a lie. New foreign direct investment in the US — to acquire, create or expand businesses — was $232 billion in 2025. (Source) The White House's own website claims there've been $10.6 trillion (not $19.2 trillion) in ‘major investment announcements’ this Trump term — and even that's a wild exaggeration that includes vague pledges, vague statements that aren't even pledges, and pledges about trade between the US and other countries rather than investment in the US.”

Dale then attached a link to a CNN article from October 2025 in which he fact-checked Trump’s then-assertion that $17 trillion had been invested in the US during his term. His assessment: that “figure is fiction.”

At the time, the White House itself was only claiming $8.8 trillion in investments, but as CNN pointed out, a list of investments provided by the administration fell well short of that number, “and it would not comment on the record to address CNN’s specific questions about the many holes in the ‘$8.8 trillion’ figure.”

“Instead,” wrote Dale, “White House spokesperson Kush Desai said in an email that the media is doing ‘pointless and pedantic nitpicking’ and said, ‘The President is right: industry leaders have committed to investing trillions to make and hire in America, with trillions more to come.’ He added that the media would be ‘beclowned’ when Trump’s ‘policies take effect and investment commitments materialize into new factories and facilities."

Since then, these “new factories” have failed to appear. Rather than the manufacturing boom Trump promised, his policies have resulted in the loss of at least 100,000 manufacturing jobs so far. More recently, his decision not to renew the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement has prompted concerns that doing business in the US will become even less predictable, reducing trade, further increasing prices, and killing jobs.

In fact, Trump’s economic performance has been so dismal that over the course of his second term, labor force participation has plunged dramatically, sinking the country is back to where it was in March 2021, before the post-pandemic recovery.

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