President Trump repeats familiar claims in address to Congress

US President Donald Trump last night delivered his first major address to Congress since beginning his second term in office, and spoke about his plans for the US economy, immigration and Ukraine.

His speech included a number of claims which we’ve recently looked at.

Mr Trump said that the US has spent “perhaps $350 billion” on support for Ukraine.

While the US has contributed more in overall aid to Ukraine since 2022 than any other country, we’ve not found any evidence to support this figure, and it’s considerably higher than other available estimates.

We wrote in detail last month about the figures on aid to Ukraine.

Mr Trump also claimed that the construction of the Panama Canal “came at a tremendous cost of American blood and treasure” and that “38,000 workers died” building it.

We fact checked a similar claim from Mr Trump during his inauguration speech in January—on that occasion he said the US “lost 38,000 lives”, though in his remarks yesterday it wasn’t quite clear if he was suggesting all those who died were American.

Either way, we’re not certain what the 38,000 figure is based on, but published estimates we’ve seen suggest this figure is too high if looking specifically at American deaths.

Last night the president also claimed that under the previous administration the US “suffered the worst inflation in 48 years, but perhaps even in the history of our country, they’re not sure”.

The US, like many other countries, has seen high levels of inflation in recent years, but not an all-time record. US inflation reached 9.1% in June 2022, which was its highest point since the early 1980s, but some way below the 23.7% inflation seen in 1920 (the highest level seen since current records began in 1914).

Fact checkers based in the United States have taken a look at more of the claims Mr Trump made about his domestic policies and the record of his predecessor in last night’s speech.