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Photo by Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images.
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A Flawed Justification for Higher Tariffs
The stock market tumbled this week partly in reaction to President Donald Trump's tariff policies, which include a new 25% tariff on all steel and aluminum imports, the threat of reciprocal tariffs, and the on-again, off-again customs duties on goods imported from Canada and Mexico. The European Union, Canada and China have issued retaliatory tariffs in response.
One reason Trump has repeatedly given for issuing more tariffs is his claim that the U.S. was its “richest” or “wealthiest” during the late 1800s and early 1900s because of tariffs. But as Staff Writer D'Angelo Gore found, the claim is wrong or misleading, in several ways.
“Our country is going to become rich again, very rich,” Trump said at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Feb. 22, when talking about new tariffs that he announced this year. "You know, we were richest, the richest, relatively, from, think of this, from 1870 to 1913. That was our richest because we collected tariffs from foreign countries that came in and took our jobs and took our money, took our everything, but they charged tariffs.”
The overall economy wasn't its richest then. Real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product per capita is many times higher today. As of 2022, it was $58,487 – nearly six times higher than $10,108 in 1913 and more than 12 times higher than $4,803 in 1870. D'Angelo got those figures from the Oxford University-based project Our World in Data, which calculated historical real GDP per capita based on international prices in 2011.
Beyond that, several economists say that Trump and others have given too much credit to tariffs for the economic growth that did occur during America's so-called Gilded Age. The post-Civil War period was indeed a time of economic prosperity, largely for the wealthy. Economists and historians have said that other factors, such as immigration and increased labor productivity, contributed more to the growth in that era than tariffs.
Trump has also made the dubious suggestion that tariffs could replace the federal income tax, which became law in 1913. Economists say that's highly unlikely.
Erica York, vice president of federal tax policy for the Tax Foundation, wrote in October that Trump's suggestion was “a mathematical impossibility.” In fiscal year 2023, the government collected $2.2 trillion from the individual income tax and only about $80 billion from tariffs. To make up the difference, Trump would have to impose an across-the-board tariff of 70% on all imported goods, York said.
For more, read D'Angelo's full story: "Trump’s Flawed Claim that Tariffs Made the U.S. Its ‘Richest.’"
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To fact-check competing claims from Democrats and Republicans about the impact of extending the individual income tax provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, we consulted the Tax Policy Center, the Penn Wharton Budget Model and the Tax Foundation, three groups that routinely conduct independent analyses of the impact of tax policies. Those groups had determined that about two-thirds to three-quarters of taxpayers would benefit from an extension. While the cuts skew in favor of wealthy Americans, who would see more tax relief, every income group benefits on average. Read more: "Both Sides Spin Who Would Benefit from Extending Trump Tax Cuts."
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HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. misleadingly focused on vitamin A, including from cod liver oil, as a treatment for measles. Vitamin A is recommended around the world for those who have contracted measles. Studies in lower-income countries where many lack the vitamin have shown that high-dose bursts of vitamin A help reduce measles mortality. But the benefit for populations without deficiencies, like in the U.S., is unclear. Cod liver oil isn’t advised at all. It would need to be consumed in a potentially dangerous amount to get the recommended vitamin A dosage for a measles infection. Read more: "RFK Jr. Misleads on Vitamin A, Unsupported Therapies for Measles."
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Meta announced on March 13 that it would begin testing its new Community Notes program on March 18. As our readers know, Meta had said in early January that it was ending its partnership with fact-checking organizations in the U.S. and would use a Community Notes program, à la the one used by X, instead. This week's announcement is a step closer to Meta making that switch.
Community Notes won't go public until sometime after the testing, and in the meantime, our work -- and that of other U.S. fact-checkers -- will still be used to label false and misleading posts that are spreading on Facebook, Instagram and Threads, Meta's platforms. The labels show up as a small "see context added to this post" note.
If you'd like to become a contributor to Community Notes, you can join the waitlist here.
"Around 200,000 potential contributors in the US have signed up so far across all three apps, and the waitlist remains open for those who wish to take part in the program," Meta said. "But notes won’t initially appear on content. We will start by gradually and randomly admitting people off of the waitlist, and will take time to test the writing and rating system before any notes are published publicly."
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SOCIAL MEDIA POST OF THE WEEK
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This week's featured social media post highlights the competing claims about the probable extension of the 2017 individual tax cuts, which are set to expire at the end of this year.
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Wrapping Up
Here's what else we've got for you this week:
- Full-Time Employment Increased Under Biden, Contrary to Rick Scott’s Claim: As we reported in January, President Donald Trump inherited a resilient economy experiencing continued growth in jobs, including an increase in full-time workers. But Republican Sen. Rick Scott recently painted a much different picture, calling the pre-Trump economy “crappy” and falsely claiming that full-time employment was “dropping almost the entire Biden administration.”
- White Nationalist Group Is Still Active, Contrary to Social Media Claims: Social media posts, some pointing to comments by podcaster Joe Rogan, are spreading unsupported claims that members of the Patriot Front are federal agents and that the group disbanded after the recent leadership change at the FBI. But days after Kash Patel was confirmed as FBI director, the Patriot Front had two public rallies, and its website refutes the claims.
Y lo que publicamos en español (English versions are accessible in each story):
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