Speaking to the National Federation of Independent Business in D.C., Trump cited a story in a "major newspaper" about Canadians travelling to the United States and "smuggling things back in to Canada because the tariffs are so massive." It was not immediately clear which report he was referring to.

Trump said the tariffs on common items in Canada are “so high” that Canadians buy products, such as shoes, and wear them and “scuff ‘em up” to smuggle them across the border.

The U.S. president appeared to confuse duties, a longstanding fee on items purchased abroad, with Canada’s recently proposed tariffs, which are not in effect until July 1. Notably, Canada does not plan to put a tariff on shoes.

TRUMP: "I remember a nuclear event took place, 8.8 on the Richter scale, and they announced — I heard it on the radio, they announced that a massive, you know, an earthquake took place somewhere in Asia. And then they said it was in North Korea, and then they found out it was a nuclear test, I said, I never heard of a Richter scale in the high eights." — remarks Tuesday.

THE FACTS: North Korea had no earthquake last year approaching that level of severity. This isn't the first time he has misrepresented the episode.

North Korea tested what it called a hydrogen bomb in September, causing an underground blast so big it registered as a 6.3 magnitude earthquake. Other nuclear tests last year were associated with smaller seismic events.

An 8.8 quake would be 316 times bigger — and release 5,623 times more energy — than a 6.3.

In the past 15 years there have been three earthquakes that were an 8.8 or higher: the 9.1 Fukushima earthquake and tsunami in Japan in 2011 that killed nearly 16,000 people, a 9.1 earthquake and tsunami off northern Sumatra in 2004 that killed about 250,000 people and an 8.8 earthquake off Chile in 2010 that killed 524.