Trump's "China Virus" Pivot
Trump spent 50 days as Xi’s Beijing Bob, now he wants us to believe he’s tough on China.
It’s been reported in recent days that the U.S. intelligence community had warned in late January and early February that COVID-19 could be a “globe-encircling pandemic that could require governments to take swift actions to contain it.” But despite those briefings, Donald Trump repeatedly downplayed the severity of the virus. Worse, it appears President Trump either seemed to believe Xi Jinping over U.S. officials, or at least pretended to—perhaps in order to protect his ego or the stock market.
Regardless, the net effect was the president once again siding with a foreign dictator over his own intelligence officials on an issue of critical national importance.
Now that President Trump has been forced to acknowledge reality, he has made a rhetorical pivot in order to make it seem as though he has been the one who was tough on China all along. This “tough on China” pivot is premised mainly on his willingness to troll the CCP by calling it the “China Virus,” something he began on March 16th after a month of calling it the “coronavirus.”
But if you look at what President Trump actually told the public about China—and consider reports about how he handled the virus internally—you understand that this “China Virus” pivot comes from a place of extreme weakness and vulnerability. Because for two critical months as the crisis unfolded, nobody was a bigger Xi-leader than Donald J. Trump.
https://thebulwark.com/the-chinavirus-pivot/
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