FactChecking Trump’s CPAC Speech

Former President Donald Trump’s keynote speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference included several false and misleading claims, some of which we’ve fact-checked before. Here we focus on assertions about foreign policy and energy.

Trump falsely claimed that he “ended” Nord Steam 2 — the Russian pipeline that would double the export of Russian natural gas to Germany — and misleadingly said President Joe Biden “approved it.” German regulators must approve the completed, but not yet operational, pipeline.

Trump exaggerated how low gas prices were under his administration and how high economists think they could go now.

He said that he made the U.S. “the No. 1 energy superpower” and the Biden administration “ended it almost immediately.” If he was referring to the U.S. becoming a net exporter of petroleum in 2020, it was still a net exporter in 2021 — though that may change in 2022.

He also said the U.S. should “start producing” as it did in 2020, rather than “buying Russian energy.” If he was referring to oil, the U.S. was buying from Russia in 2020, and for many years before.

Trump said the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan in late August was “a surrender for no reason whatsoever,” not mentioning that he had set the withdrawal in motion and wanted it to occur months earlier than it did.