Fact check: Trump’s false claims at his NATO press conference

Trump’s NATO Summit Remarks Under Scrutiny: A Comprehensive Fact Check

Fact check – During a press conference held Wednesday at the NATO summit in Ankara, President Donald Trump presented a fresh batch of inaccurate statements to the media. Many of these assertions echoed falsehoods he had previously shared during his meeting with Turkey’s president on the preceding day. Below is an examination of several notable claims from his Wednesday address.

The $19.2 Trillion Investment Claim

One of Trump’s recurring assertions is that the United States has received $19.2 trillion in investments within a single year of his current presidency. This number, however, does not reflect reality. When Trump first made this claim on Tuesday and on many earlier occasions, we documented its inaccuracy. At the time of his Wednesday remarks, the White House website itself stated that $10.6 trillion in “major investment announcements” had occurred during his term—not the $19.2 trillion figure he cited. Even this White House number represented a significant overstatement of genuine investment activity.

A thorough CNN investigation conducted in October revealed that the White House was tallying trillions of dollars in ambiguous investment commitments. These commitments primarily concerned “bilateral trade” or “economic exchange” rather than direct investment within American borders. Furthermore, some of these statements did not even qualify as formal pledges. The White House tally also encompassed commitments from both domestic corporations and international organizations alike.

According to federal statistics released last month, new foreign direct investment flowing into the United States totaled approximately $232 billion throughout 2025—far below the trillions Trump has been citing.

Manufacturing Construction Decline

Trump asserted that his administration is witnessing “the largest number of plants being built for the most money ever in the history of our country,” encompassing automotive facilities, artificial intelligence centers, and pharmaceutical manufacturing sites. Federal data tells a different story. Spending on American manufacturing construction has experienced a steady downward trajectory during Trump’s second term, following an increase that characterized much of former President Joe Biden’s tenure. That earlier surge had already diminished by the concluding months of Biden’s presidency.

Official charts clearly illustrate this decline across 2025 and 2026. The seasonally adjusted annual rate for manufacturing construction spending in May 2026 stood at roughly $174.8 billion. This represented a decrease of approximately 28 percent compared to May 2024, which was the final May under Biden’s administration. The same figure also reflected a 28 percent drop from December 2024, Biden’s last complete month in office. Additionally, the May 2026 rate fell about 26 percent from February 2025, Trump’s inaugural full month as president, and declined approximately 22 percent from May 2025.

Election Claims and Maduro Prison Assertions

Trump once again misrepresented the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. He declared:

“I’ve been right about everything, and I have been for a long time. It’s how I got to be president three times. It’s how I won three elections.”

He subsequently reiterated that he “won” the 2020 contest but characterized it as a “rigged election.” In truth, Trump has served as president on two separate occasions and has legitimately won two elections. He lost the 2020 race fairly and squarely to Biden. We will set aside his exaggerated assertion that he has “been right about everything.”

Regarding former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, Trump repeated his standard claim that Maduro “had people pour into the country from prisons; they opened up their prisons, they allowed them to come in.” Nevertheless, Trump has never supplied verification for this assertion. While Venezuela experienced substantial emigration during the Maduro era due to economic difficulties, violence, and political instability, no evidence has emerged to support the claim that Maduro specifically emptied prisons to facilitate migration. Roberto Briceño-León, founder and director of the Venezuelan Observatory of Violence, stated in an email to CNN in June 2024:

“We have no evidence that the Venezuelan government is emptying its prisons or mental health institutions to send them outside the country, in other words, to the US or any other country.”

Helen Fair, a global prisons expert at Birkbeck, University of London, similarly told CNN in 2024 that she had “seen absolutely no evidence” that any nation had emptied prisons to relocate prisoners to the United States.

Border Crossing Statistics

Addressing immigration policy, Trump repeated his false assertion that “25 million people, I think more than that, under Biden” crossed the border. The “25 million” number is incorrect; even Trump’s earlier “21 million” figure constituted a substantial exaggeration. By December 2024, the final complete month of the Biden administration, federal authorities had documented fewer than 11 million nationwide “encounters” with migrants throughout that administration, including millions who were quickly expelled from the country. Even when incorporating the so-called “gotaways” who avoided detection—estimated by House Republicans at approximately 2.2 million—the total remained well below Trump’s claims.