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By the Reality Check team
BBC news
image copyrightfake images
In his final speech before leaving the White House, President Trump said that while in office he had done what he came to do.
We have verified some of the claims you made about your track record.
Claim 1: “When our nation was hit by the terrible pandemic, we produced not one, but two vaccines with record speed.”
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted emergency use for two Covid-19 vaccines: Moderna and Pfizer / BioNTech.
The government’s vaccine program, Operation Warp Speed, provided funding for the development of the Moderna vaccine.
Although Pfizer / BioNTech signed an agreement with the government to deliver doses, it did not receive money to develop or conduct tests.
And although Pfizer is an American company, this particular vaccine was developed in conjunction with the German-based company BioNTech.
It was their gene-based technology that was the key to making the vaccine.
Statement 2: “I am especially proud to be the first president in decades who has not started new wars.”
This needs context, as it depends on how war is defined.
The United States has formally issued declarations of war against 11 countries in five separate conflicts. The last formal declaration of war was during World War II.
Most of the time, the United States enters into conflict using the “authorization of military force” granted by Congress to the president.
For example, President George W Bush used this for the Iraq war in 2003.
And President Obama sought approval from Congress to intervene in Syria after chemical weapons were used there.
President Trump has participated in military action abroad using legislation passed by previous administrations.
In October 2019, he announced the assassination of the leader of the Islamic State al-Baghdadi in an American operation, but said he decided not to notify Democratic leaders in Congress beforehand.
In January 2020, President Trump ordered an airstrike that killed Iranian General Qasem Soleimani. At the time, the White House cited congressional “military force authorization” granted under the Bush administration as the legal basis.
The Trump administration has also
increase in US drone attacks in Somalia.
Claim 3: “We are leaving with pride … with the strongest border security measures ever in place … with over 450 miles of powerful new wall.”
The construction of a wall along the southern border with Mexico was one of his main promises in the run-up to the 2016 elections.
Since January 4, 2021, a total of 452 miles (757 km) of barrier has been built since he took office.
However, the vast majority of this new wall replaced the existing structures on the border.
Only 80 miles of new barriers have been built where there were none before.
Of these 47 miles is what is called the primary wall, and 33 miles are secondary wall that reinforces the initial barrier.
President-elect Joe Biden said he would not build “one more foot” of the wall.
Claim 4: “We built … the largest economy in the history of the world.”
The United States economy has certainly performed well under Trump before the coronavirus pandemic, but there have been periods in previous administrations when it did significantly better.
In his first three years in office, Trump oversaw an average annual growth of 2.5%.
This was slightly higher than the last three years of the Obama era.
However, there have been many periods when the growth of GDP, the value of goods and services in the economy, was much higher.
And in 2020, the economy experienced the largest contraction on record due to the coronavirus pandemic.
It recovered 33% in the third quarter of last year, itself a record quarterly increase, but this did not return economic activity to pre-pandemic levels.
GDP figures for the last quarter of 2020 have not yet been released.
Claim 5: “We … achieved record unemployment for African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans …”
The African American unemployment rate reached 5.2% in August 2019 and the Hispanic rate reached 4% in September 2019.
These were the lowest rates on record since the U.S. Department of Labor began collecting these statistics in the 1970s.
The unemployment rate has recently skyrocketed for both groups due to the huge impact of the pandemic on the US economy.
And this has disproportionately affected African Americans and Hispanic Americans: their unemployment rates are 3.2 and 2.6 percentage points higher, respectively, than the overall figure.
Asian American unemployment is currently 5.9%.
It reached a record low of 2.1% in June 2019, but these records only date back to 2003.
Claim 6: “We Approve VA Choice”
VA Choice is a government program that provides better quality medical care to former military personnel in the US.
President Trump did not approve of this program, it was created in 2014 under President Obama, but he expanded it.
In June 2018, President Trump signed legislation that reformed VA Choice, expanding the eligibility requirements for veterans to access private healthcare.
Claim 7: “We passed the largest package of tax cuts and reforms in American history.”
That’s not correct for tax cuts in general, the previous ones have been bigger. It is suitable for corporation tax.
We investigated this claim in 2018 shortly after Congress passed a comprehensive tax reform. According to tax specialists, the cuts were big, but not the biggest.
image copyrightAFPThe Committee for Responsible Budgeting analyzed the numbers and reported that President Trump’s tax cuts would be the eighth largest in US history, compared to the overall size of the economy.
Adjusting for inflation, President Trump’s tax cuts rank fourth overall.
However, tax experts also evaluated Trump’s reduction in corporate tax from 35% to 21%. Most said in absolute terms that it was the biggest corporate tax cut in history.
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