President Trump, while issuing a rapid-fire series of executive orders and directives since taking office, has rationalized his initiatives with a series of false and misleading claims.
In trying to deny automatic citizenship for some born in the United States, he falsely described other countries’ laws. In rescinding climate policies, he mischaracterized obligations made by countries in the Paris climate agreement. And in defending a chaotic rollout that froze federal funding, he cited an example of waste that lacked evidence.
Here’s a fact check.
What Was Said
False. There are more than a dozen U.S.-based banks and subsidiaries operating in Canada.
Mr. Trump made the claim after he imposed tariffs on Canada, but before Canada negotiated a delay. His assertion would have been more correct about a quarter of a century ago. Since 1999, though, foreign banks have been allowed to establish branches in the country, according to a report by Statistics Canada, a government data agency. Previously, foreign banks could only operate subsidiaries there.
Branches are essentially the Canadian offices of banks headquartered in other countries, but they cannot accept deposits smaller than 150,000 Canadian dollars. Subsidiaries can accept smaller deposits, but they are separate legal entities from their parent companies.
American banks operating in Canada as either subsidiaries or branches include: Amex Bank of Canada, Bank of America, Bank of New York, Capital One, Citibank Canada, Comerica Bank, Fifth Third Bank, J.P. Morgan Canada, M&T Bank, Northern Trust, PNC Bank, State Street, U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo.
Altogether, the American banks have assets of 113 billion Canadian dollars, the Canadian Bankers Association said in a statement.
What Was Said
“The numbers, some of the numbers are horrible, what he’s found. 100 — think of it, $100 million on condoms to Hamas.”
— in remarks on Feb. 3
This lacks evidence. After a White House order pausing government loans and grants created widespread confusion, Mr. Trump defended the move as an attempt to identify “tremendous waste and fraud and abuse,” such as government funding for condoms for the militant group Hamas.
Even after the administration rescinded the order, Mr. Trump repeated the claim days later, doubling the amount to $100 million for good measure.
The State Department told The New York Times that the claims refer to “two buckets” of $50 million each for the International Medical Corps’ work in Gaza, and that included family planning programming such as condoms. The State Department did not respond when asked about the exact amount for condoms specifically.
But in a statement last week, the International Medical Corps wrote that it had received more than $68 million from the United States Agency for International Development since October 2023 for its work in Gaza and “no U.S. government funding was used to procure or distribute condoms.” Instead, the group said, the money was used to operate two field hospitals providing medical care, treat and diagnose malnutrition, deliver more than 5,000 babies and perform 11,000 surgeries.
A public government database outlining the International Medical Corps’ contracts shows that the organization has received nearly two dozen grants that are still in progress and add up to more than $100 million. A vast majority of the awards, however, are not related to Gaza or family planning services. About $80 million worth of grants is for work in Africa to treat malnutrition, improve water sanitation, prevent infectious diseases and provide other health services. None of the remaining $20 million specifically mention Gaza, but some aimed to combat gender-based violence in Lebanon and Jordan, where many Palestinians have sought refuge.
The New York Times and other news organizations have been unable to find evidence supporting assertions of $50 million or $100 million in funding for condoms in the Gaza Strip. (There do appear to be tens of millions of dollars in federal grants awarded to other charities for the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases and H.I.V. in Gaza, a province of Mozambique.)
According to a report from U.S.A.I.D., the United States provided nearly $61 million in contraceptives — including condoms as well as oral contraceptives and intrauterine devices or IUDs — across the entire world in the 2023 fiscal year. Almost 90 percent of that went to Africa, and just $45,681 worth went to one country in the Middle East, Jordan.
Humanitarian and family planning organizations and researchers have specifically noted that condom access in Gaza is limited and made even more unavailable by Israel’s war.
In a 2018 report entitled “A Much Neglected Service: Assessment of Family Planning Services in Palestine,” the United Nations Population Fund found that a vast majority of the condom supply in the strip was distributed by the Gaza Ministry of Health and UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees. The federal government does not fund the ministry, and the Biden administration paused funding for the U.N. agency in early 2024.
Mr. Trump is correct that there have been news reports on improvised explosives attached to bunches of balloons or condoms floating from Gaza to Israel. That appeared to have begun in 2018.
What Was Said
This is exaggerated. As he moved to impose stiff tariffs on Mexico and Canada, Mr. Trump indicated that the tariffs were punishment for how “unfairly” the two countries had treated the United States, citing overstated figures for the flow of trade, migrants and drugs from both.
Government data shows that the United States had a trade deficit of about $171.8 billion with Mexico in 2024. That was the highest on record, but still short of Mr. Trump’s estimate. A White House official cited a Fox News report showing that in Mr. Trump’s first seven days in office, crossings along the southwest border fell to just over 7,200, down more than 60 percent compared to the last seven days of the Biden administration. That was a precipitous decline, but not “almost zero” as Mr. Trump said. There is no evidence that “millions” of people from jails all over the world had entered the United States through the southern border.
Mr. Trump did not specify just how much fentanyl and criminal migrants were coming through the northern border beyond describing the flow as “a lot.” But the data does not show a particularly large number.
Throughout all of the 2024 fiscal year, officials intercepted just 43 pounds of fentanyl on the northern border, according to drug seizure data. In comparison, the amounts were 21,100 pounds across the southern border and 698 pounds along the coasts and in airports. Similarly, officials recorded 23,700 encounters with migrants trying to cross the northern border illegally in the 2024 fiscal year, compared with more than 1.5 million at the southern border.
What Was Said
This is misleading. On his first day in office, Mr. Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris climate agreement. He characterized the agreement later as unfair to the United States. Mr. Trump has a point that China’s and Russia’s pledges for curbing emissions have a later deadline than the United States’, but they still made reduction targets. Moreover, the Paris agreement is nonbinding for all parties involved, with no enforcement mechanism.
Under the Paris agreement, 195 countries pledged in 2015 to set targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions as part of a worldwide effort to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Countries set their first targets beginning in 2015, and agreed to update them every five years. The United States is the largest emitter historically, while China is the largest currently.
Mr. Trump withdrew the United States from the agreement in 2017, and the Biden administration rejoined in 2021.
The United States, under the Biden administration, had pledged in 2021 to reduce emissions by at least 50 percent from 2005 levels by 2030, and to reach net zero emissions by 2050, according to a compilation of targets by Climate Action Tracker, a research group. The United States is on track to reduce its emissions by 29 to 39 percent by 2030, short of reaching its goal, the group said.
A White House official noted that China’s emissions also rose in 2024. But China, in 2021, said its emissions would continue to climb until 2030, and then begin declining before reaching carbon neutrality in 2060. But emissions are on track to peak in 2025, a few years ahead of schedule, according to Climate Action Tracker.
And Russia pledged to reduce emissions by at least 30 percent from 1990 levels by 2030 and reach carbon neutrality by 2060. Under current policies, Russia’s emissions will continue to climb in 2030, not decline, Climate Action Tracker reported.
What Was Said
This lacks evidence. In justifying sweeping tariffs and an executive order designating some cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, Mr. Trump spoke about the toll fentanyl has taken in the United States, appearing to dispute official overdose estimates. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated that over 100,000 people have died from drug overdoses annually since 2021, and that number has been declining since 2023. The number did not reach 100,000 until 2021.
Deaths involving synthetic opioids like fentanyl have increased over the past decade, making up more than 70 percent, or more than 70,000, of all overdose deaths since 2021. But that figure also declined in 2023 and has never reached 100,000 people, let alone 300,000.
What Was Said
False. On his first day in office, Mr. Trump signed an executive order to limit birthright citizenship and falsely claimed the United States was unique for offering it. In fact, the United States is one of 33 countries that confers citizenship at birth with no conditions, according to the Library of Congress. All but six are in the Americas, and include Canada and Mexico. More than three dozen others confer birthright citizenship based on the legal or citizenship status of the parents, the length of their residency or other conditions.
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