Fact check: Five false claims Trump made in one meeting with Erdogan
By Daniel Dale, CNN
(CNN) — President Donald Trump delivered a series of false claims about Greenland, the United States and his own accomplishments as he spoke to the media during a Tuesday meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan before a NATO summit in Ankara.
Perhaps the most topical of the falsehoods was about Greenland, the semiautonomous Danish territory Trump called again for the US to control. He wrongly claimed, as he has before, that the island is “surrounded by China’s ships and Russian ships.” It’s simply not, as independent experts and various foreign governments have made clear.
Trump also revived his long-debunked claims that he has “settled eight wars,” that former President Joe Biden gave Ukraine “hundreds of billions of dollars worth of equipment,” that there has been “$19.2 trillion” or more invested in the US since he returned to office last year, and that the 2020 election was “rigged.”
Here is a fact check.
Greenland, Russia and China
Trump said Greenland is “surrounded by China’s ships and Russian ships.” But there is simply no basis for that claim – which has previously been rejected by independent experts, the Danish government and military, officials from other Nordic countries, Greenlandic officials and residents, and current and former US officials.
In an interview published last month, the commander of the Danish military’s Arctic forces said that, as usual, they did not see Chinese or Russian ships in or around Greenland, Danish media outlet TV 2 reported. P. Whitney Lackenbauer, a professor at Trent University in Canada who is an expert on Arctic security issues, told CNN in January that Trump’s claim was “completely invented,” and Lackenbauer reiterated in an email on Tuesday that the assertion “remains inaccurate.”
It’s possible Trump has seen classified intelligence showing some Chinese or Russian maritime activity near Greenland at some recent point. But even that wouldn’t make it true that Greenland was “surrounded.”
Trump and wars
Repeating one of his most frequent false claims about foreign affairs, Trump said, “You know, I settled eight wars.” He didn’t. His “eight wars” list is highly flawed.
Trump’s list includes two situations that were never actually wars during his tenure: a diplomatic dispute between Egypt and Ethiopia and a mysterious supposed situation between Serbia and Kosovo. The list also includes a war, involving Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, that hasn’t actually ended despite a peace agreement brokered by the Trump administration.
In addition, the list includes the war between Israel and Hamas, but Israel continues to conduct near-daily attacks in Gaza despite a US-brokered ceasefire agreement. And it includes the brief 2025 conflict between Israel and Iran, though Israel proceeded to join the US in starting another war against Iran in 2026.
Biden and aid to Ukraine
Talking about Ukraine, Trump said, as he has before, that “when Biden was here, he gave them hundreds of billions of dollars worth of equipment.” That “hundreds of billions” claim is a significant exaggeration. According to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a German think tank that closely tracks international aid to Ukraine, the US had allocated about $74 billion in military aid to Ukraine (at current exchange rates) from late January 2022, just prior to Russia’s full-scale invasion, through April 2026. Including financial and humanitarian aid, total US aid was about $132 billion.
Investment in the US
Trump also repeated his frequent false claim that “we have $19 trillion, $19.2 trillion to be exact, being invested in the United States.” This time, he added that this supposed total was from only the first 12 months of this presidential term, “so that number is now substantially higher” after nearly 18 months back in office.
But even the $19.2 trillion figure is fiction.
At the time Trump made the claim on Tuesday, the White House’s own website claimed there had been “$10.6 trillion” in “major investment announcements” this term, and even that was a major exaggeration of actual investment. 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.
The White House figure includes pledges from US-based companies as well as foreign entities. Federal data published last month shows that new foreign direct investment in the US was about $232 billion in 2025.
The 2020 election
Trump, as usual, described the 2020 election as “a rigged election.” That’s a lie. Trump lost a legitimate election to Biden, fair and square.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
