FACT FOCUS: Trump says tariffs have created an economic miracle. The facts tell a different story

WASHINGTON -- Looking back on the first year of his second term, President Donald Trump boasts that he has resurrected the American economy by imposing big import taxes on foreign products.He made his case in a recent opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal, chiding the paper and critics, including mainstream economists, who predicted that tariffs would backfire, raising prices and threatening growth.

“Instead,'' he wrote, “they have created an American economic miracle.” But the proof he offers is often off-base or wrong altogether.Here's a look at the facts around Trump's assessment of tariffs.

CLAIM: “Just over one year ago, we were a ‘DEAD’ country.Now, we are the ‘HOTTEST” country anywhere in the world!’ ’’THE FACTS: This is a standard statement from Trump.

But the U.S.economy was hardly “dead’’ when Trump returned to office last year.

And in Trump's second term, it's performed strongly — after getting off to a bumpy start.In 2024, the last year of the Biden presidency, American gross domestic product grew 2.8%, adjusted for inflation, faster than any wealthy country in the world except Spain.It also expanded at a healthy rate from 2021 through 2023.The numbers for all of 2025 aren't out yet.

But during the first three quarters of the year, Trump's tariffs — or the threat of them — delivered mixed results for the American economy.From January to March, U.S.

GDP actually shrank for the first time in three years.The main culprit was easy to identify: a surge in imports, which are subtracted from GDP, as American companies rushed to buy foreign products before Trump could impose tariffs on them.But growth rebounded in the second half of the year.

From April through June, the economy expanded at a healthy 3.8% pace.And from July through September, it grew even faster — 4.4%.

A big part of the surge was a drop in imports, likely reflecting Trump's tariffs as well as the fact that importers had already stocked up at the st...