Fact-Checking Trump’s G7 Remarks – The New York Times

The market capitalization for both the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges totaled $8 trillion in November 2017, and declined to about $7.5 trillion in July 2019, according to Jennifer Carpenter, a professor of finance at New York University’s Stern School of Business who studies Chinese markets.

What Mr. Trump said

“If I hadn’t won, our economy now would have been overtaken by China.”

Projections for when China’s economy would — if ever — overtake the United States’ economy to become the largest in the world have varied greatly.

Based on current growth rates, China’s economy will eclipse the United States’ in 2037, according to David Dollar, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former Treasury Department representative in China. Other recent estimates range from 2020 to 2062 to never, depending on the metrics used to gauge economic size.

Before Mr. Trump was elected, projections similarly encompassed a wide range to 2014 to 2029 and 2030.

Those earlier estimates were clearly wrong, and China’s economic slowdown, the consequence of Beijing’s own policies more than Mr. Trump’s trade war, “has put off the date,” Mr. Scissors said.

Mr. Dollar also dismissed the projections: “There was never any chance that they were going to surpass the U.S. economy in a year or two” before Mr. Trump took office. He added that Mr. Trump’s trade wars may have taken half a percentage point off China’s annual growth, but “that’s pretty minor.”

“He deserves some of the credit,” Mr. Scissors said. “He’s just taking all of it.”

What Mr. Trump Said

“And my first step with Japan was to say, “You have to move car companies into the United States.” And they did. Many car companies are now operating plants in the United States and building plants in the United States.”

Japanese automakers have announced two new plants since January 2017: a joint assembly plant in Alabama operated by Toyota Motor and Mazda Motor, and a manufacturing center by Hino Motors in West Virginia. Before Mr. Trump took office, Nissan announced in 2013 it would open a supplier park, the only other major new plant announcement in the past decade.

But beyond new plant openings, Japanese automakers have invested billions in manufacturing expansions, research and development, warehousing and distribution, and administrative additions since 2008.

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