In response to a question during a summit in Ottawa on the anti-free-trade sentiment exemplified by Trump, Obama acknowledged the shortcomings of trade agreements, but he argued that reverting to tariffs and a possible trade war was the wrong way to improve the situation.
He also asserted that the US steel industry is producing as much steel as it ever was, but with one tenth the workforce.
Data from the American Iron and Steel Institute pegged the all-time employment high at 650,000 employees in 1953. More recent data from the institute, for 2015, shows that the steel industry directly employs about 142,000 people in the United States, which is closer to one in five jobs left.
A spokesperson from the White House admitted that the President was mistaken in his calculations.