Trump’s claim about energy exports problematic

“We have become an energy exporter for the first time ever just recently.” — President Donald Trump on Aug. 22 in at a rally in Phoenix

Was he correct about the United States being an energy exporter? Short answer: No.

But to get to the short answer, you have to wade through several possible interpretations of what Trump meant. (The White House did not clarify his meaning for us.)

One way to read Trump’s statement is to take it to mean the United States only recently began to export energy. This is flat wrong. Trump might have meant that the United States had only recently become a net exporter of energy — meaning the total of all U.S. energy exports recently overtook the total of all U.S. energy imports. This is less wrong, but still not accurate. In its most recent projections, the federal Energy Information Administration concluded that the United States would become a net energy exporter around 2026, depending on future patterns of global supply, demand and pricing. Our ruling

This statement is problematic regardless of how you interpret his statement: gross energy exports, net energy exports, gross crudeoil exports, and net natural gas exports. The closest he would come to being accurate is if he were referring to net natural gas exports, but even there, it hasn’t happened yet, contrary to what his past-tense statement indicates. We rate the statement False.

NEW YORK TIMES President Donald Trump might have meant that the U.S. had only recently become a net exporter of energy.