Donald Trump has been hoping China would pressure North Korea to behave itself, perhaps by restricting trade with the hermit kingdom. No such luck. And as the New York Times noted, “Mr. Trump vented his displeasure with China in a pair of early-morning tweets.” Being that these were tweets, and that the tweets came from Trump, the Times had to find a way to call them into question.
The more substantive of the two tweets, published at 7:21 the morning of July 5, read as follows: “Trade between China and North Korea grew almost 40% in the first quarter. So much for China working with us—but we had to give it a try!”
“It was not clear,” the Times promptly sniffed, “where Mr. Trump garnered his 40 percent figure for growth in overall trade between China and North Korea.” As if to prove the president’s know-nothing buffoonery, the Times proceeded to cite figures about various commodities traded between China and North Korea. It was a couple of paragraphs later that the NYT finally got around to official Chinese data: “China’s trade with the North grew 37.4 percent during the first three months of the year, compared with the same period in 2016,” the Times reported.
The last time The Scrapbook checked, “almost 40%” was a perfectly reasonable way to round 37.4 percent, and “the first quarter” meant the same as “the first three months of the year.” In other words, the Trump tweet was spot on. It also means that, sniffy posturing notwithstanding, the Times knew exactly where the president had “garnered” his figure.
