US lawmakers introduce bill to screen sales of potentially dangerous synthetic DNA

Reuters
Wed, February 4, 2026 



U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar declares her candidacy for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination in Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S., February 10, 2019. REUTERS/Eric Miller


SAN FRANCISCO, Feb 4 (Reuters) - Two U.S. senators this week introduced a bill that would create new rules around the sale of synthetic gene sequences ​that could be used to create bioweapons.

Synthetic genes are sequences of nucleic acids - the ‌building blocks of biological life found in DNA - created in labs for use in medical research, gene therapies and ‌crop development, among other uses.

In recent years, scientists have started using artificial intelligence to discover or design new sequences, which can then be synthesized on machines that can fit on a benchtop.

Senator Tom Cotton, an Arkansas Republican, and Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, this week introduced ⁠a bill that directs the U.S. ‌Department of Commerce to require the labs that do gene synthesis work to screen their customers and orders to ensure that bad actors ‍are not ordering dangerous sequences.

The bill would require the Commerce Department, with the help of other federal agencies, to compile a list of potentially dangerous genetic sequences.

“While access to genetic material allows scientists to study ​diseases, develop lifesaving medicine, and improve crops, without safety standards it could be misused, ‌including to create bioweapons," Klobuchar, the No. 3 Democrat in the Senate, said in a statement.

The bill also takes the first steps toward pulling together current biosecurity regulations, which are scattered across the U.S. government, to both streamline the regulations, keep pace with fast-moving technology companies and address safety gaps.

“American innovations in biotechnology are too important to fall into the ⁠hands of bad actors or be hamstrung by ​outdated federal policies," Cotton, the No. 3 Republican in ​the Senate, said in a statement.

Gene synthesis has captured the attention of lawmakers before.

Last year, the U.S. House of Representatives committee on China sent a ‍letter to the directors ⁠of the FBI and national intelligence, renewing its concerns about GenScript Biotechnology's work with U.S. companies because of its ties to China.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers in both ⁠houses of the U.S. Congress also last year introduced a bill that would require U.S. firms to obtain ‌an export license before sending gene sequence data to China.

(Reporting by Stephen ‌Nellis in San Francisco; Editing by Michael Perry)


Senate Republican on suspected biolab found in Las Vegas: ‘Enormous problem’

Ashleigh Fields
Wed, February 4, 2026 

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) on Tuesday said the suspected biological research lab found in Las Vegas poses an “enormous problem” to the public after investigators collected vials with “unknown liquids” at a private residence.

“This is a enormous problem. It’s under everybody’s, it’s under the radar. It’s very easy to obtain this kind of information, start doing this gain of function with CRISPR technology” Johnson said during an appearance on NewsNation’s “Katie Pavlich Tonight,” using the acronym for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats.

“This is a real threat to our national security,” he added.

Johnson referenced the possibility of individuals using CRISPR, which is a precise, efficient gene-editing technology derived from bacterial immune systems that acts as molecular scissors to modify, delete or correct DNA sequences, according to the Broad Institute, a non-profit biomedical research organization.

The technology also allows individuals to disable a gene or insert new genetic material.

Johnson told host Katie Pavlich that Congress has “no idea” how many illegal labs are operating across the country.

After an initial investigation, authorities believe the lab found in Las Vegas has possible ties to Jia Bei Zhu, who was arrested in 2023 for failing to obtain the proper permits to manufacture tests for COVID-19, pregnancy and HIV, and mislabeling some of the kits for a biolab in Reedley, Calif., according to The Associated Press.

Investigators also located “pathogen-labeled containers” with labels in English and Mandarin that read “dengue fever,” “HIV” and “malaria,” along with 1,000 mice, according to a federal report from the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party.

“He is not involved in any kind of a biolab being conducted in a home in Las Vegas,” his attorney, Anthony Capozzi, told the outlet.

“What went on in that residence we are unaware of,” he added.

However, his name is listed as the registered agent of the Las Vegas-based company that owns the property where SWAT officers executed a search warrant of the alleged biolab, according to KLAS. The LLC purchased the home in 2022.

In court documents, the man previously told a judge he no longer runs the companies, though he remained listed in Nevada business records, KLAS reported.

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved.

What happened at Davos was a warning to CEOs: Their companies are designed for a world that no longer exists

President Donald Trump delivers a special address during the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 21, 2026. ·

 Mandel NGAN / AFP via Getty Images

Ram Charan
Tue, February 3, 2026 
 Fortune 

What happened at Davos this year was not simply a message for presidents and prime ministers. It was a warning for chief executives. The World Economic Forum has long served as a venue for diplomatic signaling, but this time the implications landed squarely in the boardroom.

At Davos, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney warned that the “post–Cold War rules-based international order” is no longer holding, and that countries must “take on the world as it is, not the world we wish to see.” That admonition applies even more forcefully to CEOs. Their corporate strategies built for yesterday’s order are now exposed to risks they no longer control.

For three decades, American multinationals operated on a quiet assumption: that geopolitics would remain largely external to commercial decision-making. That assumption survived the 1990s and 2000s even as cracks appeared in the global trading system. Today, it is not merely outdated but dangerous. What companies are experiencing is not a sudden rupture, but the accumulated effect of trends that have been visible for years. What is striking is how many firms remain organized as if those trends never mattered.

Davos crystallized a shift that can no longer be dismissed as diplomatic theater. Europe and Canada are deepening economic engagement with China, and China is actively reciprocating. This is happening as the United States uses tariffs, industrial policy, and explicit reciprocity to make clear that economic alignment will no longer be inherited by default. It will be negotiated, enforced, and revisited.

Our allies are not rejecting the United States. They’re hedging. Their response is a rational adjustment to a world in which trade, technology, and capital are explicit instruments of state power. China did not arrive at this position by accident. Under Xi Jinping, Beijing has systematically reduced its dependence on Western goodwill while building asymmetric leverage across industrial capacity, critical inputs, and market access. Europe and Canada were not treated as adversaries; they were treated as strategic options. Once Washington stopped pretending the old system still functioned, those options became more valuable.

The data reinforces what the rhetoric now confirms. More than half of America’s goods trade deficit is with allies, not China. China, meanwhile, remains Europe’s largest or second-largest trading partner, with bilateral trade measured in the hundreds of billions of dollars. These patterns are not transitional. They are structural. Allies moving closer to China are not engaging a neutral market actor; they are engaging a mercantilist system designed to absorb demand while exporting overcapacity. For American companies, the consequence is not only competitive pressure abroad but a steady erosion of industrial strength at home.

The central challenge for CEOs is not tariffs or export controls in isolation. It is strategic mismatch. Most American multinationals are still designed for a world of stable alliances, predictable currencies, and relatively frictionless capital flows. That world no longer exists. Yet organizational structures, incentive systems, and growth targets continue to assume it does. Strategy, in too many firms, remains backward-looking—anchored in nostalgia rather than feasibility.

Western multinational corporations must now redesign for a world in which alignment is fluid, currencies are volatile, and allies do not move in lockstep. That requires decisions that many firms have deferred for too long.

First, CEOs must build scenarios that assume some allies will continue edging toward China’s economic orbit. This is no longer an academic exercise. Leaders must model both growth opportunities and structural risks as trade patterns realign: competing across many smaller markets rather than a handful of scale markets; detecting Chinese export pressure in fragmented quantities where subsidies and price aggression are hardest to see; operating across multiple volatile currencies rather than relying on dollar-centric assumptions; and redesigning organizations so unfiltered market intelligence reaches the top. Above all, it demands relentless focus on cost, productivity, and relevance. Products must compete with Chinese offerings after accounting for currency depreciation and state support, not before.

Second, companies must decide clearly where to play—and where not to play. With Xi exercising direct control over China’s supply chains, ambiguity is no longer a strategy. Selectivity is. Firms that delay hard choices will be outmaneuvered by those that make them early.

Third, CEOs must reset goals to what is feasible rather than familiar. Growth targets built on yesterday’s assumptions will destroy capital tomorrow. Discipline now matters more than optimism.

Fourth, capital generation and allocation must be reconsidered from first principles. In which currencies will profits be earned? What buffers are required against political and financial shocks? These are no longer technical questions for finance teams alone; they are core strategic judgments.

Fifth, sunk costs must be confronted honestly. Footprints will shrink. Facilities will close. Delay only raises the eventual price.

Finally, geopolitical judgment must move out of government-affairs silos and into the CEO’s office and the boardroom. This requires a genuine war-room mentality. Geopolitical exposure now shapes growth trajectories, margin durability, and corporate valuation. It is strategy.

Many allies accumulating reserves today do so on the back of open American markets. That openness is no longer unconditional, nor is it infinite. Davos made that clear—not just to governments, but to anyone responsible for allocating capital and setting direction.

My argument is not about ideology. It is an argument about adaptation. The companies that decide to do so now will continue to grow. Those that do not will discover that alignment risk compounds faster than financial risk ever did.

The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

THE GRIFT

Billionaire GOP Mega-Donor Rips Trump Corruption: Been ‘Very Enriching to the Families’ of Admin Officials

Alex Griffing
Wed, February 4, 2026

MEDIATE

Billionaire GOP mega-donor Ken Griffin accuses Trump administration of corruption and questions if public interest is being served.See more

Billionaire GOP mega-donor and past Trump supporter Ken Griffin accused the Trump administration this week of corruption and warned that business leaders are concerned about getting trapped in a loop of government coercion.

“This administration has definitely made missteps in choosing decisions or courses that have been very, very enriching to the families of those in the administration,” Griffin said during a conference in West Palm Beach on Tuesday. The Citadel founder was speaking at an event hosted by The Wall Street Journal and added, “That calls into question: is the public interest being served?”

“One of the things that you want to believe is that those who serve the public interest have the public interest at heart in everything they do,” Griffin added.

Griffin’s comments come amid new reporting that Trump and his sons pocketed an eyepopping $500 million investment linked to the United Arab Emirates in their crypto company just ahead of Trump’s second inauguration. The New York Times also reported last month that by its count, Trump and his family have made $1.4 billion since taking office a second time, a figure the Times called a “minimum” accounting.

White House spokesman Kush Desai responded to Griffin’s comments in a statement to the Financial Times:

The only special interest guiding the Trump administration’s decision-making is the best interest of the American people. The fact that major stock indexes have hit multiple all-time highs, real wages have grown, and inflation has cooled since President Trump took office is proof that this administration is delivering for every American.

Griffin donated tens of millions to the GOP in 2024, but declined to endorse Trump directly. He has since been a tough critic of the president on various issues, namely tariffs, which he warned put the U.S. “on a slippery slope to crony capitalism.”

Griffin also slammed the administration’s approach to corporate America and the seemingly quid-pro-quo relationships Trump has forged with major business leaders.

The FT reported on Griffin’s comments, writing, “Griffin said the dynamic has generated concerns that the US would enter a continuous cycle of corporate leaders needing to pander to whomever is in power, instead of relying on the success of their business.”

Griffin was quoted on the subject as warning, “Most CEOs just don’t want to find themselves in the business of having to in some sense suck up to one administration after another to succeed in running their businesses.”

The post Billionaire GOP Mega-Donor Rips Trump Corruption: Been ‘Very Enriching to the Families’ of Admin Officials first appeared on Mediaite.

Ken Griffin is apparently done with ‘sucking up’ to the White House

Founder and CEO of Citadel Ken Griffin during the World Economic Forum annual meeting at Davos, Jan. 21, 2026. · Fortune · Fabrice COFFRINI—AFP/Getty Images

Eleanor Pringle

Wed, February 4, 2026

A carousel of CEOs has paraded through the White House since President Trump was elected a little over a year ago—they even made up a front-row bench at his inauguration. This isn’t unusual; in fact, it’s entirely expected that the president might want to engage with the private sector.

But when does that relationship get too close for comfort?

The nature of the relationships between top brass at America’s largest businesses and the Oval Office is beginning to make some people uncomfortable: As Citadel CEO Ken Griffin warned this week: “When the U.S. government starts to engage in corporate America in a way that tastes of favoritism, I know for most CEOs that I’m friends with, they find it incredibly distasteful.”

Trading conditions under Trump 2.0 have been markedly different from the previous decade, throwing markets and executives into disarray. In the volatility following Trump’s Liberation Day announcement in April, Griffin said the sight of business leaders lining up at the Oval Office door to request exceptions to the new duties was “nauseating,” and that the White House showing favor to certain companies undermines the American Dream.

An environment addled by politics isn’t one most CEOs relish, Griffin, 57, told the Wall Street Journal’s Invest Live conference yesterday. He said founders and leaders “want to go run our businesses and win on the merits of providing a better product to our customers at a lower price. Like, that’s how we win.”

Griffin warned executives are thinking: “‘I’m close to this administration, but does that mean the next administration is going to grant a favor to one of my competitors, or take a favor away from me, because I don’t support them publicly?’”

This second-guessing isn’t conducive to decision-making, Griffin added: “Most CEOs just don’t want to find themselves in the business of having to, in some sense, suck up to one administration after another to succeed in running their business.”

Griffin, himself a top GOP donor, has been something of a critical friend to the White House. He has been candid in his warnings, but has also highlighted Trump’s return to the Oval Office was a welcome relief from the “regulatory onslaught” companies faced under Biden.

Speaking to Fox Business weeks ago, Griffin (a native Floridian who has shifted his operations away from New York and in the direction of the Sunshine State) said to have that “literally end on one day—Election Day—just gives you so much energy as an entrepreneur to go back and build your damn business.”

That said, the man worth $51.2 billion, per Forbes, also highlighted the individual gains extended to the families of the Trump administration. “One of the things that you want to believe is that those who serve the public interest have the public interest at heart in everything they do,” he said. “And I think that this administration has definitely made missteps in choosing decisions or courses that have been very, very enriching to the families of those in the administration.”

‘Extinguished’ voice of corporate America

While Griffin was critical of CEOs using their position for individual benefit, he made it clear the opinions of corporate leaders should still bear weight in national conversation.

Companies caught in “the whole woke movement” served as a lesson to corporate leaders that consumers could make or break their business overnight, said Griffin, claiming it had “created a level of fear and apprehension amongst the corporate CEO class to insert themselves in any publicly facing issues these days.”

Griffin pointed to Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who served a brief stint in the White House, leading the highly controversial Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). DOGE’s work was heavily criticized, as it included slashing billions from foreign aid budgets, which philanthropists like Bill Gates warned would lead to the deaths of millions of children.

 suffered a boycott, with cars, showrooms, and charging points damaged beyond repair, not only in the U.S. but also across Europe. A few examples include Molotov cocktails being thrown at vehicles in Las Vegas; gunshots fired at a showroom in Portland, Ore., and charging points set on fire in Boston.

While Griffin admitted, “We can do more than quibble about some of the choices or things that [Musk] said,” he added, “we should admire that willingness to give up oneself to make our country better.”

The Citadel CEO has argued before that American business leaders should speak their mind, especially to the president. Talking with Bloomberg at Davos, Griffin said: “I’m willing to speak my mind about the policies … because [Trump] listens. American business executives are making a real mistake in not speaking their mind, because this president—he’ll have his moments where he’ll troll, he’ll have those moments—but he does listen.

“We need the voices of America’s corporate leadership in the halls of Washington, on the front page of papers, to talk about the issues that we need to have for domestic prosperity,” Griffin added this week.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Trump Dodges When Asked About Bombshell WSJ Report on ‘Secret’ Foreign Investment

Alex Griffing
Mon, February 2, 2026 


President Trump was asked about a Wall Street Journal report alleging that a crypto company owned by him received a half-billion-dollar investment from the UAE before he took office, linked to sensitive processing chips being provided to the UAE.See more

President Donald Trump was asked on Monday in the Oval Office to react to a recent report from the Wall Street Journal that a crypto company owned by him and his family received a half-billion-dollar investment from a foreign country, the United Arab Emirates, just days before he took office.

The WSJ report also linked the investment to the UAE gaining access to highly sensitive processing chips that the previous administration had withheld over national security concerns. The WSJ was the first to report on what it called an “unprecedented” and “secret” deal between a U.S. president and a foreign country.

“Mr. President, the Wall Street Journal reported that the royal family of Abu Dhabi invested hundreds of millions of dollars in World Liberty Financial. Can you explain why you decided to take that investment? Was that a transaction?” Trump was asked by CNN’s Jeff Zeleny.

“Well, I don’t know about it. I know that crypto is a big thing and they like it. A lot of people like it, the people behind me like it. My sons are handling that. My family is handling it. And I guess they get investments from different people, but I’m not—I have all I can handle right now with Iran and with Russia and Ukraine and with all the things we’re doing. So I don’t know. I don’t know exactly, other than, you know, I’m a big crypto person. I’m the one that probably helped crypto more than anybody, because I believe in it,” Trump replied, dodging the question.

“And the reason I believe in it is because if we don’t do it, Scott, I think we can say then China is going to do it. If we don’t do crypto, then China’s going to do it, and it’s just like AI. We’re leading AI by a lot. And if we weren’t leading, China would have led. You know, they’re very capable. They’re very good. What do you have to say about that?” Trump added, turning to his Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

EPIPHINAY

Marjorie Taylor Greene Says MAGA 'Was All a Lie' and Claims Trump Is Only Serving 'Big, Big Donors'

In a new interview, the former Republican congresswoman also suggested that Baby Boomers are the most "brainwashed generation"

Paloma Chavez
Mon, February 2, 2026


Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene in March 2024
Chip Somodevilla/Getty

NEED TO KNOW

During an interview with Kim Iverson, former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene slammed the Trump administration, saying the Make America Great Again movement "was all a lie"


"People always think, ‘Oh, it’s his staff.’ They want to blame everyone around him. There may be a point where people have to come to grips with this is Donald Trump," she added.


Greene also criticized Fox News, accusing the outlet of spoon-feeding baby boomers propaganda on TV

Former Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene called out one-time ally President Donald Trump for abandoning the core promises behind his Make America Great Again campaign.

“MAGA is, I think, people are realizing, it was all a lie,” she told YouTube host Kim Iversen on Wednesday, Jan. 28. “It was a big lie for the people.”

Greene, 51, claimed the Trump administration is focused on serving “big, big donors,” including foreign countries. “And if they’re donating to all these things, those are the people that get the special favors, they get the government contracts, they get the pardons or somebody they love or one of their friends gets a pardon," she said.

Greene also dismissed those who argue that Trump's actions are driven by those in his inner circle.

“People always think, ‘Oh, it’s his staff.’ They want to blame everyone around him,” she said. “There may be a point where people have to come to grips with this is Donald Trump.”

Greene, once a close Trump ally often seen beside the president at rallies, was also critical of Fox News, the network on which she has appeared as a guest numerous times, arguing that it is responsible for "brainwashing" Americans.

“People watching Fox News, every day, 24/7 with their volume turned all the way up in their living room and it’s so loud that you can’t hear anything else?" Greene said. "Those are the baby boomers and God bless them, those are my parents’ generation.”

She went on to add, “I love so many of the baby boomers, but they are the most brainwashed generation because they eat that crap, like, they just eat it up all day long. They’re spoon-fed the propaganda on TV.”

“And so I don’t know how the political-industrial complex is going to continue to brainwash Americans ’cuz we’re just not brainwashed anymore," Greene continued.

PEOPLE reached out to Fox News for comment.

In November 2025, Greene announced her resignation from Congress, effective in January 2026. She represented Georgia's 14th congressional district.

In the announcement, shared to X, Greene slammed the Trump administration and went on to describe experiencing what she claimed was "wrong" and "unfair" treatment from the president.

Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene in May 2024
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty

"I have too much self-respect and dignity, love my family way too much, and do not want my sweet district to have to endure a hurtful and hateful primary against me by the President we all fought for, only to fight and win my election while Republicans will likely lose the midterms,” she said.

“And in turn, be expected to defend the President against impeachment after he hatefully dumped tens of millions of dollars against me and tried to destroy me," Greene continued. "It's all so absurd and completely unserious. I refuse to be a 'battered wife' hoping it all goes away and gets better.”

Greene has also been critical of how the president has handled the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files.

“We did talk about the Epstein files, and he was extremely angry at me that I had signed the discharge petition to release the files,” Greene told 60 Minutes in December 2025, referring to her decision to sign a U.S. House petition pushing the government to release all documents related to the late convicted sex offender.

In November 2025, Greene claimed on X that she was "being contacted by private security firms with warnings for my safety as a hot bed of threats against me are being fueled and egged on by the most powerful man in the world," in reference to Trump.

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Trump later responded to Greene's claims while speaking with reporters before boarding Air Force One.

"Marjorie 'Traitor' Greene. I don't think her life is in danger," the president told reporters in November 2025. "I don't think. Frankly, I don't think anybody cares about her."

Fact check: Trump’s WSJ op-ed was littered with false and misleading claims

Daniel Dale, Alicia Wallace, Tami Luhby, CNN
Tue, February 3, 2026 

The Wall Street Journal published an op-ed on Friday under the name of President Donald Trump. Trump criticized experts who warned that his tariff policies would cause economic destruction, writing that “the spectacular economic numbers coming out every single day” are proof that he was right and they were wrong.

But Trump’s rosy case was based in part on figures that are plain false or highly misleading, using cherry-picked beginning and ending points for various calculations to serve the president’s argument. And some of his qualitative claims were also inaccurate.

Here is a fact check.

Investment in the US

Trump repeated his regular false claim that in less than one year back in office, “we have secured commitments for more than $18 trillion” in new investment in the US, “a number that is unfathomable to many.” The number is not only unfathomable but factually incorrect. As of Tuesday, four days after the op-ed came out, the White House’s own website said the figure for “major investment announcements” during this Trump term was $9.6 trillion, and even that is a major exaggeration; a detailed CNN review in October found the White House was counting trillions of dollars in vague investment pledges, pledges that were about “bilateral trade” or “economic exchange” rather than investment in the US, and vague statements that didn’t even rise to the level of pledges.
A growth estimate from a Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta model

Trump accurately noted that gross domestic product grew by an annual rate of 4.4% in the third quarter of 2025, but then he said that, despite the impact of the fall government shutdown, “the fourth quarter is projected by the Atlanta Fed to be well over 5%, a number like our country has not seen in many years.” While the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow model was estimating fourth-quarter 2025 growth of more than 5% just over a week ago, the latest update from the model, released four days before Trump’s op-ed was published, was down to 4.2%. Also, some other estimates suggest fourth-quarter growth was lower than 4.2%.

Trump didn’t define “many years,” but 4.2% growth in the fourth quarter of 2025 would be the fastest since the third quarter of 2023, during the Biden administration, aside from the 4.4% growth in the third quarter of 2025 under Trump.

The trade deficit

Trump claimed that, in an incredible achievement, “we have slashed our monthly trade deficit by an astonishing 77% — all with virtually no inflation, which everyone said could not be done.” We’ll address the “virtually no inflation” claim below, but the claim of a 77% decline in the trade deficit is misleading — an apparent reference to a one-time decline in October that quickly reversed in November.

Here are three big reasons why the “77%” claim is misleading.

1) The trade deficit jumped in November after a sharp fall in October. The trade deficit — the difference between the value of goods and services imported to the US and goods and services exported from the US — has been volatile this year amid the trade turmoil caused by Trump’s tariff policies. In October, the deficit fell sharply to just $29.2 billion, the lowest for any month since 2009. This was down about 77% from January 2025, the month Trump returned to office, and down about 39% from September.

But experts cautioned that the sharp October decline was likely to prove short-lived, the result of temporary fluctuations in the trade of pharmaceuticals and gold. And the deficit then spiked in November, jumping 95% back up to $56.8 billion. The November figure was still 56% lower than the January 2025 figure, but 56% is not 77%.

The November figure was released the day before Trump’s op-ed was published. (It’s not clear when Trump’s team submitted it to the Journal.)

2) January 2025 is a flawed starting point. January 2025 had the largest trade deficit on record to that point, $128.8 billion. Trump only returned to office on January 20, 2025, but experts widely attributed the giant deficit figure that month to a corporate rush to import products to the US ahead of the big tariffs Trump had promised as a candidate. So comparing any recent monthly figure to January 2025 — or to February and March 2025, when the import rush continued — is bound to show a large decline.

3) The overall trade deficit has been higher in 2025 than it was in 2024. Through November, the total goods and services trade deficit in 2025 was $839.5 billion. That’s up 4% from the 2024 deficit through November, $806.6 billion. So although Trump was at least directionally correct in the op-ed when he wrote that “American exports are up by $150 billion” — through November 2025, goods and services exports were about $185 billion higher than they were through the same period in 2024 — he didn’t mention that the increase in imports was even bigger, about $219 billion through November.
Stocks since “Liberation Day”

Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange on January 21, as a screen displays President Donald Trump speaking at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland. - Brendan McDermid/ReutersMore

Trump wrote that “the stock market has skyrocketed” since “Liberation Day,” April 2, 2025, when he announced he was imposing sweeping global tariffs (many of which he ended up paring back). It’s true that the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the market index he mentioned in the op-ed, had increased about 17% between its close on “Liberation Day” and this Monday, February 2, 2026 — but Trump didn’t mention that many foreign stock markets have outperformed the Dow over the same period.

For example, Japan’s Nikkei 225 was up about 47%, China’s SSE Composite up about 20%, South Korea’s Kospi Composite up about 98%, Canada’s S&P/TSX Composite up about 27%, and the United Kingdom’s FTSE 100 up about 20%.

Factory construction

Trump wrote, “Factory construction is up by 42% since 2022.” Trump’s choice of 2022 as his starting point for this calculation is misleading given that the op-ed was purporting to provide evidence of the success of his tariffs: he took office and imposed the tariffs in 2025, when spending on factory construction actually declined from 2024. The spike above the 2022 numbers largely occurred in 2023, under President Joe Biden, as you can see in this chart.

“It’s interesting (Trump) would take credit for something that transpired during the Biden administration,” Anirban Basu, chief economist for construction industry group Associated Builders and Contractors, said in a Monday interview. Basu said that after Biden signed two major 2022 laws, the Inflation Reduction Act (which promoted clean energy and electric vehicle manufacturing) and the CHIPS and Science Act (which promoted semiconductor manufacturing), there was a boom in factory construction spending — but the data shows “that boom ends in 2025.”

The federal data set a White House official said Trump was citing here shows that total US spending on manufacturing construction was down about 5% in the first 10 months of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024, the last calendar year of the Biden administration, and that it fell for nine consecutive months in 2025 through October. Basu said Trump’s tariff policies appear to be one of the major reasons for the 2025 decline, leaving companies with less capital to potentially pursue expansion and causing many of them to adopt a wait-and-see approach in response to tariff levels that can change significantly at a moment’s notice.

Trump’s claim in the op-ed was at least more transparent than the similar claim he made in his January address to the World Economic Forum in Davos, when he said “factory construction is up by 41%” without explaining he was using 2022 as the starting point.

But the op-ed didn’t mention the decline in manufacturing jobs in this presidential term to date. Through December 2025, the economy had shed 63,000 manufacturing jobs since January 2025 — and was down 72,000 manufacturing jobs since April 2025, the month of “Liberation Day.”

Biden and real wealth

President Joe Biden delivers his farewell address to the nation from the Oval Office of the White House, on January 15, 2025. - MANDEL NGAN/AFP/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

Trump claimed that by causing an inflation crisis, Biden and his allies in Congress cost “the typical American family $33,000 in real wealth.” But this figure is misleading: real wealth increased significantly for the middle class, as well as all other groups, if you look at Biden’s presidency from beginning to end. Trump’s claim about a decline in real wealth for the “typical” family is accurate only if you look at a mere fraction of Biden’s presidency.

“There was a dip in 2022-2023 but a clear rebound in 2024,” Emmanuel Saez, a University of California, Berkeley economics professor who studies the issue, told CNN on Monday.

When CNN asked the White House where it got the claim of a $33,000 reduction in real wealth, an official responded by saying it was from an analysis by Senate Republicans on how much the average household had paid in extra costs because of Biden-era inflation. But that doesn’t make sense; you simply can’t track “real wealth,” which measures assets versus liabilities, by looking at inflation-related spending.

It appears possible that the White House, like Trump’s 2024 campaign, actually got the $33,000 figure from a Bloomberg report in July 2023 that noted that tracking by Saez and Berkeley colleagues found that, since the Federal Reserve had started raising interest rates in March 2022, average real wealth had dropped more than $33,000 per middle-class household.

Saez said his team didn’t update the tracker after 2023, but he said the longer-term picture can be seen in public Federal Reserve data – which shows that wealth for the middle class bounced back sharply over the course of 2023 and 2024, finishing Biden’s presidency at a much higher level than where it started.

Bloomberg’s report defined middle class as households in the 50th to 90th percentile, so we’ll do the same. These households had about $37.5 trillion in total real wealth in the first quarter of 2021, Biden’s first in office, and about $48.4 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2024, Biden’s last full quarter in office, according to the Federal Reserve data.

Various claims about inflation

Trump boasted of the stock market repeatedly setting record highs since he was elected again in 2024, then added that this has happened “with virtually no inflation.” He gave himself some fact-check wiggle room with the word “virtually,” but the US certainly has inflation. In December 2025, average consumer prices were up 2.7% from December 2024, Consumer Price Index figures show. Trump also claimed in the op-ed that “inflation has fallen dramatically” despite a sharp increase in tariff rates, but that 2.7% year-over-year rate was only slightly lower than the 2.9% rate of December 2024, Biden’s last full month in office, and the 3.0% rate of January 2025, the month of Trump’s inauguration.

And while Trump attributed the 40-year high in US inflation (9.1% in June 2022) solely to the Biden administration’s “trillions of dollars in wasteful spending” and “extremist green energy agenda,” the real story is more complicated.

Inflation’s rapid ascent, which began in early 2021, was the result of a confluence of factors. Those included effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, such as snarled supply chains, and geopolitical issues, notably including Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, that caused shocks in energy and food prices. Heightened consumer demand boosted in part by pandemic-era fiscal stimulus from both the Trump and Biden administrations also led to higher prices.

Trump and wars

A rocket and smoke trails from a multiple rocket launcher are seen in the sky during clashes along the Cambodia-Thailand border in Cambodia's Oddar Meanchey province on December 10, 2025. - Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP/Getty Images/FileMore

Trump repeated his regular false claim that “in nine months, I settled eight raging conflicts, WARS,” saying that “tariffs deserve much of the credit.” While Trump has played a role in resolving some wars (at least temporarily), the “eight” figure is a clear exaggeration.

Trump has previously explained that his list of supposed wars settled includes a war between Egypt and Ethiopia, but that wasn’t actually a war; it is a long-running diplomatic dispute about a major Ethiopian dam project on a tributary of the Nile River. Trump’s list also includes another supposed war that didn’t actually occur during his presidency, between Serbia and Kosovo. (He has sometimes claimed to have prevented the eruption of a new war between those two entities, providing few details about what he meant, but that is different than settling an actual war.) And his list includes a war involving the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, but that war has continued despite a peace agreement brokered by the Trump administration in 2025 — which was never signed by the leading rebel coalition doing the fighting.

Trump’s list also includes an armed conflict between Thailand and Cambodia, where fighting temporarily erupted again in December despite a peace agreement brokered by the Trump administration earlier in 2025.

The federal budget deficit

Trump claimed that “with the help of tariffs, we have cut that federal budget deficit by a staggering 27% in a single year.” But the White House arrived at this “27%” figure by calculating changes in the deficit in an atypical way, specifically by cherry-picking convenient start and end dates.

A White House official told CNN on Monday that it got the “27%” figure by comparing the cumulative deficit from February 2025 (Trump’s first full month back in office) to November 2025 with the cumulative deficit over the same February-to-November period in 2024. The deficit during the 2025 period was about $1.4 trillion, or roughly $516 billion less than it was in 2024. That equates to a 27% reduction.

To be sure, the increase in federal revenue from Trump’s tariff changes helped narrow the budget gap. The government took in a total of $229 billion in net customs duties, which include tariffs, between February and November of 2025.

However, thetypical method of measuring changes in the deficit is to compare one full fiscal year to the next. The deficit dipped by $41 billion, or 2.3%, in fiscal year 2025 (which ended September 30) compared to fiscal year 2024, a much smaller change than the one Trump cited.

The 2025 fiscal year, which started October 1, 2024, included most of the last four months of the Biden administration. But Trump’s methodology isn’t just eliminating the Biden months, it is also selecting a specific period where the budget gap was unusually narrow.

There are several one-time reasons why the deficit dropped during the first 10 months of the Trump administration, according to Chris Towner, policy director for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a fiscal watchdog group.

The federal government was shut down for about six weeks during October and November 2025, which delayed some federal spending and payments —temporarily reducing the size of the monthly budget deficits. That spending will be subsequently reflected in the months the payments were eventually made.

Also, because February 1 fell on a weekend in 2025, the payments due that day were made at the end of January, reducing federal spending for February. Plus, the period the White House chose includes $130 billion in one-time savings from the student loan changes in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act Trump signed in 2025, though those measures don’t take effect right away.

What Trump didn’t mention is that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office expects that the deficit reduction won’t last long. The hefty tax cuts and increases in defense and homeland security spending in the legislation are expected to add a total of $4.1 trillion (including interest payments) to the deficit over the next decade, according to the CBO.

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