President Donald Trump has continually promised this week that China will “pay a high price” for its role in the coronavirus pandemic, an indistecinct but competitive risk of a president who has accused China of spreading the disease after launching a tense industrial war between the two. Countries.
In videos posted on Twitter wednesday and Thursday, Trump said China is guilty of the coronavirus pandemic, claiming that the virus “was sent through China” and promised that the country would pay an undes specified price.
Trump made similar accusations in a Thursday morning interview on Fox Business, noting that “I’m in good health” and predicting that China will give Trump a favorable industrial deal because he hopes to keep him happy.
Vice President Mike Pence criticized China’s vice presidency debate Wednesday for not communicating the true severity of the virus to the world, prompted Trump’s January resolution to ban the maximum number of travelers from China, and promised to “hold China accountable. “
On Twitter this week, Trump returned to his habit of calling the coronavirus a “Chinese virus” or “Chinese plague,” which has been criticized as racist and encouraging hateful attacks on Chinese-Americans.
Trump’s preference to punish China is not new: in April, Trump intervened asking China for cash and its sovereign immunity, which would theoretically allow Americans to sue the Chinese government, the Washington Post reported.
Some foreign policy experts have ignored threats as a dizzying wave of the crusader season or an attempt to deflect blame from the Trump administration, but others are concerned that seeking to extract China’s punishment may lead to retaliation.
“We are making great progress with this terrible disease that was sent through China,” Trump said in a video Thursday, 3 days after being discharged from the hospital with Covid-19. “China will pay high value for what it has done in the world and us. “
Since uttering his 2016 presidential candidacy, Trump has made China a source of American problems, accusing the country of taking credit for the United States and imposing maximum price lists on Chinese products in 2018, a component of an industrial war that he said would diminish the United States. The industry deficit, although many economists have criticized this strategy. After Covid-19’s first appearance, Trump temporarily blamed China, expressing his help for a conspiracy theory without evidence free that the coronavirus was intentionally invented in a laboratory in China. , although many criticized Chinese officials for covering Covid-19 outbreaks in the weeks following the first outbreak of the virus.
73%. That’s the percentage of Americans whose vision of China was unfavorable as of this summer, an increase of 26 points since 2018, according to a Pew Research Center survey. control of Covid-19 and the authoritarianism of President Xi Jinping.
This is not the first time Trump has claimed reimbursement from foreign countries, one of the promises of Trump’s crusade in 2016 to force Mexico to pay the cost of building a border wall, but then backed down on the promise, saying the country could simply pay for the wall by reducing its industrial deficit with the United States.
Trump threatens China with a ‘high price’ for what they do to the world,’ as the crusade seeks to blame it (CNN)
Trump’s coronavirus diagnosis ‘means an American line over China’ (South China Morning Post)
U. S. designs retaliatory measures opposed to China for coronavirus while President Trump smokes (Washington Post)
I’m a last-minute news reporter in Forbes. Previously, I covered local news for the Boston Guardian and graduated from Tufts University in 2019.
I’m a last-minute news reporter in Forbes. Previously, I covered local news for the Boston Guardian and graduated from Tufts University in 2019. You can contact me jwalsh@forbes. com.