Glenn Kessler: “Every presidential administration hypes the numbers in economic deals. Bill Clinton, for instance, claimed the North American Free Trade Agreement would create 1 million jobs. Well, that was a mistake, a placeholder figure that was accidentally left in his prepared remarks, but it’s emblematic of the phony math behind the figures that often dominate the headlines.”
“During President Donald Trump’s trip to the Middle East, the White House issued a news release titled ‘President Donald J. Trump Secures Historic $1.2 Trillion Economic Commitment in Qatar.’ The text said that he ‘signed an agreement with Qatar to generate an economic exchange worth at least $1.2 trillion.’”
“Economic commitment? Economic exchange? Those are meaningless buzzwords. No matter. The $1.2 trillion figure ended up in headlines across the world.”
“The goal is to have a number for headlines. No one is going to bother to check in 10 years whether any of this stuff actually happened.”
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