Trump making America great again could be the reason China turned a blind eye to the spread of the Wuhan virus or possibly encouraged its release into the US as reprisal for Trump tanking their economy. It also makes sense that China wasn’t unhappy about scoring a bonus hit with collateral damage to the rest of the world.
Taiwan began screening Chinese travellers on 31 December, well before China, or the WHO, owned up to the pandemic, closing its borders on 19 March. Taiwan’s experience of the CCP and its intel ensured it had its wits about it when assessing a major health threat well before the facts were known outside China.
American Airlines suspended services to China on 31st January just hours before Trump issued US travel restrictions and, coincidentally, the same day that WHO fessed up about a coronavirus global health emergency, (the one WHO had advised on 5 January would not require travel restrictions against China).
“Since Chinese officials disclosed the outbreak of a mysterious pneumonia like illness to international health officials on New Year’s Eve, at least 430,000 people have arrived in the United States on direct flights from China, including nearly 40,000 in the two months after President Trump imposed restrictions on such travel, according to an analysis of data collected in both countries.
Many infectious-disease experts suspect that the virus had been spreading undetected for weeks after the first American case was confirmed, in Washington State, on Jan. 20, and that it had continued to be introduced.
In fact, no one knows when the virus first arrived in the United States. During the first half of January, when Chinese officials were underplaying the severity of the outbreak, no travelers from China were screened for potential exposure to the virus.”
Bad man orange has an extraordinary ability to handle a crisis, closing an important deal this week in the midst of the global pandemic. With the largest drop in oil prices in history prices slid as low as negative $40 a barrel. Trump persuaded Russia and the Saudis to put aside their differences and cut oil production for several months to protect the US market and alleviate pressure on the international oil industry and global financial markets.
China joined the WTO in 2001 and gradually usurped the US as the major supplier of goods to Europe, Asia, Africa and South America. When China supplied only cheap goods the US tolerated them, but plans to move up the value chain in 2015 made China a real threat. China’s military presence in the South China Sea and its belt and road initiatives did not endear them to the US either.
Two years ago Trump raised import duties and slapped trade tariffs on China which dropped China from number one in trade with the US to third place behind Mexico and Canada.
The US had to become less reliant on imports if they were to become self sufficient and keep Trump’s promise of being great again. Late last year Trump ordered US companies to take production away from China and bring it back to the US.
“On Aug. 23, Trump took to Twitter, ordering American companies to “immediately start looking for an alternative to China” and build more products in the U.S.
In doing so, he cited the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) — passed in 1977 to deal with an “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States.”
The president’s threat unsettled investors, sending stocks to session lows on a day when the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed more than 600 points.
Trump doubled down on Friday, attacking General Motors for its significant presence in China and questioning whether the automaker should move its operations back to the U.S.”
Naturally, China did not appreciate being manhandled, but in mid-December last year a trade deal was eventually struck. Trump tweeted: “We have agreed to a very large Phase One Deal with China. They have agreed to many structural changes and massive purchases of Agricultural Product, Energy, and Manufactured Goods, plus much more”.
“The details suggest something less than a “very large” deal— it seems more a pause and truce.
Still, the world will be spared the round of United States tariffs that were scheduled for December 15. By 2020, Trump’s trade wars could [have] cost the global economy $700 billion, the International Monetary Fund estimates. More tariffs would have cost more still.”
A truce is superior to all-out war, but there is a sneaking suspicion that the trade war has merely found itself a new platform.
“U.S. President Donald Trump warned China on Saturday that it should face consequences if it was “knowingly responsible” for the coronavirus pandemic, as he ratcheted up criticism of Beijing over its handling of the outbreak.
“It could have been stopped in China before it started and it wasn’t, and the whole world is suffering because of it,” Trump told a daily White House briefing.”
Trump is now reviewing the facts and timelines that China attempted to conceal. Chinese spies are known to have infiltrated the US to steal information, trade secrets and technology and they are scrambling.
“But as the coronavirus, officially termed COVID-19, continues to assault the globe – Beijing is upping its spy game on U.S. soil with a focus on manipulating the narrative, officials and experts say.
The primary focus now, according to several current and former intelligence officials interviewed by Fox News, is attempting to control the disease narrative inside the U.S. and cast the blame game anywhere but Beijing.”
The old adage to follow the money, in this case, points straight to the US-China trade war playing out on the COVID-19 stage.
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