Fact check: Trump’s false claims at his NATO press conference
Fact check: Trump’s false claims at his NATO press conference
Investment Claims
Fact check - During a press conference at the NATO summit in Ankara, President Donald Trump made a series of misleading statements. He asserted that “we have $19.2 trillion” in investments within the U.S. during just “one year” of his current term. This figure, however, is not accurate. As noted earlier, Trump made the same claim Tuesday during a meeting with Turkey’s president, and it has been debunked repeatedly.
“We have the largest number of plants being built for the most money ever in the history of our country – car plants, AI plants, and all other plants, pharmaceutical plants.”
The White House’s own website listed “$10.6 trillion” in “major investment announcements” for the term, a number that itself overstates actual investments. A CNN review in October highlighted that these figures often included vague promises related to bilateral trade or economic exchanges, rather than concrete commitments. The tally encompassed pledges from U.S. firms and foreign entities alike.
Manufacturing Construction Spending
According to federal data released last month, foreign direct investment in the U.S. totaled approximately $232 billion in 2025. Trump, however, claimed that “we have the largest number of plants being built for the most money ever.” In reality, spending on U.S. manufacturing construction has seen a consistent decline during his second term.
A comparison of official figures reveals a sharp drop. The seasonally adjusted annual rate of manufacturing construction spending in May 2026, at about $174.8 billion, marked a 28% decrease from May 2024, the final month of Biden’s presidency. It also fell 28% from December 2024, 26% from February 2025, and 22% from May 2025. This trend contradicts Trump’s assertion of a record-breaking surge in construction activity.
2020 Election Assertions
Trump again repeated his claim that he “won” the 2020 election, calling it “rigged.” Yet, he has only held the presidency twice and secured two electoral victories. The 2020 race was a legitimate loss to Joe Biden, as confirmed by official results.
While Trump insisted he “has been right about everything” for a long time, this hyperbole has been challenged. His claim that “I’ve been right about everything, and I have been for a long time. It’s how I got to be president three times” is misleading, as he has not been correct on all issues. The focus on his election win, however, remains a recurring theme in his rhetoric.
Venezuela and Migration
Referring to former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, Trump repeated his assertion that the regime “had people pour into the country from prisons; they opened up their prisons, they allowed them to come in.” Despite multiple requests for evidence, Trump and his team have not provided proof to support this claim.
Roberto Briceño-León, founder and director of the Venezuelan Observatory of Violence, told CNN in June 2024 that there is no evidence the government emptied prisons or mental health facilities to send citizens abroad. Helen Fair, an expert on global prisons at Birkbeck, University of London, echoed this, stating in 2024 that “I’ve seen absolutely no evidence” of such practices.
Trump also claimed that under Biden, “25 million people, I think more than that, under Biden” crossed the border. This figure is exaggerated, as federal records show fewer than 11 million encounters with migrants during Biden’s final full month in office. Even including estimated “gotaways” of 2.2 million, the total remains far below his stated number.