FACT CHECK: Did Trump Really Say Replace The Dollar With Gold As The Global Currency To Make America Great Again?
In March 2015 as a presidential candidate for the Republican Party's nomination, Donald Trump told WMUR television in New Hampshire (amazing video ––hat tip Forbes):
"In some ways I like the gold standard. There's something very nice about the gold standard. There's something very nice about having something very solid. You know we used to have a very, very solid country, because it was based on a gold standard. We don't have that any more... Bringing back the gold standard would be very hard to do, but boy, would it be wonderful. We’d have a standard on which to base our money."
Then-presidential candidate Donald Trump said that as a followup to a followup question from the town hall moderator after an audience member asked his opinion about the Federal Reserve:
Audience Question: What if any changes would you make to Federal Reserve? And two do you think they should be audited on a regular basis?
Donald Trump: "Audited absolutely. As far as Federal Reserve is concerned I really think that you can have it, you can not have it, a lot of people like it, a lot of conservative people like it, they think that there's a certain adjustment they make with interest rates and other things. I am not a fan. I'm not a big fan. Audit 100%, but I like a free economy, I like having a great and free economy, and they do a lot of adjustment to the economy. In some cases perhaps it's good, perhaps it's not. The truth is no body really knows. And no body really has an idea. And we have some very conservative Republicans that like the Federal Reserve. And we have some that think it should be totally disbanded. I have no opinion yet. I have not really formed an opinion."
So Donald Trump committed to no opinion about the Federal Reserve, though he did show a quite healthy skepticism of it along with a shout out to a free economy, then said that he does think bringing back the gold standard would "be wonderful."
But did Donald Trump follow through with that kind of rhetoric as president? No. In fact quite the opposite. As president Donald Trump is trying to threaten the Fed into lowering interest rates (inflating the currency) and has shown no serious intention of going to the gold standard, or any commodity standard, really, though it should be mentioned here that he does appear to be following through on his Syria policy.