April 2 is a big day.
For U.S. President Donald Trump, it’s what he’s described as “liberation day,” the date he planned to roll out “reciprocal” tariffs with countries that have trade imbalances with the U.S.
And for fact-checkers, it’s International Fact-Checking Day, the post-April Fools’ holiday started by Poynter’s International Fact-Checking Network. It’s a day to celebrate the importance of facts and the news organizations that promote them through rigorous and nonpartisan accountability journalism.
That Trump and fact-checkers are both marking this day for different reasons brings into focus a central part of what we do at PolitiFact. We seek to add clarity to complicated topics — and we’ve done a lot of reporting around tariffs, a dense issue that holds profound global impact but takes time to unwind.
Trump campaigned on an “eye for an eye, a tariff for a tariff” policy, and he directed trade officials Feb. 13 to size up all U.S. trading partners for “unfair trade practices” — not just other countries’ tariffs, but also a potentially wide range of policies including value-added taxes, subsidies and regulations.
Trump and his allies have regularly dismissed concerns about the economic threat tariffs pose. Some arguments don’t hold up to factual scrutiny.
For example, Trump frequently says the U.S. pays Canada a $200 billion “subsidy,” including in his Super Bowl interview. This is exaggerated. The U.S. trade deficit with Canada for goods was $64 billion in 2024,...
NEW HAVEN, Conn., June 18, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Wiggin and Dana is pleased to announce the launch of its new False Claims Act (FCA) Defense and Compliance Practice Group, created in response to a s...