As the U.S. went into coronavirus lockdown, Donald Trump and his biggest fans complained that the strict measures taken to counter the coronavirus pandemic and save lives caused too much economic pain.
Until the coronavirus crisis hit, Trump’s primary argument for reelection was based on the economy. Now the administration has an alternative plan for the reelection campaign: a call to arms against China.
“WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF,” Trump tweeted on March 15 as lockdowns and social distancing went into effect.
Trump declared that there was nothing to worry about, the virus would soon disappear like magic. “He gave up in the war on Covid-19 from Day 1,” wrote Timothy Egan in an opinion piece for the New York Times. “And his throw-in-the-towel tactics continue to this day, as he promotes harmful and bizarre suggestion.”
Amid rising tensions, the U.S. demanded last week that China close its consulate in Houston and China ordered the U.S. on Friday to shut its consulate in Chengdu.
Chinese state-backed media responded to a speech by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo by refocusing attention back onto Trump’s coronavirus response.
“CPC (Communist Party of China) truly serves the people, lift them out of poverty and protect them from COVID-19,” tweeted Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of the Global Times, an English-language Chinese newspaper under the umbrella of the state-run People’s Daily newspaper.
“It’s not like regime in the US that only serves interests of the capitalists, which is willing to sacrifice 150,000 lives to protect the stock market,” Hu tweeted.
Trump is willing to weaken public health measures to try and prevent further economic damage, David Corn wrote for Mother Jones. “He seems to care more about economic metrics than preventing the death of Americans.”
“Only five months ago, Trump was praising his Chinese counterpart and ‘very, very good friend’, Xi Jinping, for his ‘hard work’ and ‘transparency’ on the coronavirus outbreak, hailing a supposedly ‘momentous‘ phase-one trade deal, and declaring the U.S.-Chinese relationship to be ‘the best it’s been in a long, long time,'” Foreign Policy reported. “Now, instead of flattering China’s leadership, Trump has pivoted to a policy of trying to remove it.”
The Trump administration is portraying China as a “totalitarian” enemy that seeks to destroy the American way of life and impose a Marxist-Leninist ideology on the world. Only a second Trump term can save us.
Last week, the administration rolled out its new campaign strategy with a series of inflammatory speeches about China. During a July 23 address, Pompeo declared that 50 years of engaging China had failed. He said Xi was a “true believer in a bankrupt ideology,” and warned Americans that “Communist China is already within our borders.”
“We must induce China to change” or “Communist China will surely change us,” Pompeo said.
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In Q2, the U.S. saw the largest quarterly drop in GDP since the Great Depression, with 17.8 million people unemployed in June.
How can the stock market be so strong in the face of such bad news? “While the job losses are immense, they are in industries that aren’t material to the performance of the S&P 500 index,” Marketwatch reported.
The U.S. has reported 4,635,886 coronavirus cases and 155,330 deaths — about a quarter of all cases and deaths globally. China has reported 84,292 cases and 4,634 deaths.
Although the virus first emerged in China, the COVID-19 reported death rate in the U.S. is 100 times the reported rate in China, Time reported in June.
“The stark disparity in COVID-19 death rates between the U.S. and other countries illustrates the enormous difference between the effectiveness of the U.S. and successful countries’ responses to the pandemic,” Gavin Yamey and Dean T. Jamison wrote for Time.
