Trump Administration Toying With Alternative Economic Facts

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/02/21/trump-administration-toying-alternative-economic-facts
"The Trump administration's hallmark "alternative facts" may infiltrate U.S. economic data. The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that the White House "is considering changing the way it calculates U.S. trade deficits, a shift that would make the country's trade gap appear larger than it had in past years." People familiar with the matter told the Journal that employees of the U.S. Trade Representative's office were asked to tweak trade data by excluding re-exports, or goods that are first imported to the U.S. and then exported unchanged to a country such as Canada or Mexico."