During a state dinner in China on 14 May, President Donald Trump tried to spotlight the cultural ties between the United States and his host nation by talking about food instead of geopolitics. Rather than dwelling on military alliances or trade disputes, the American leader reached for an eye-catching statistic about Chinese restaurants in the US to illustrate the strength of the relationship.
Standing alongside Chinese President Xi Jinping, Trump threw out a bold figure about eateries that immediately drew the attention of industry analysts due to its sheer scale. However, a closer examination of restaurant data suggests the president's arithmetic is flawed.
