US President Donald Trump called on the United Nations to “hold China accountable for its actions” in a speech to the global general meeting on Tuesday.
In a pre-recorded White House speech, Trump accused the Chinese government of the global spread of COVID-19, the coronavirus disease, which has now inflamed another 31 million people worldwide and killed more than 965,000.
“In the early days of the virus, China blocked domestic travel, while allowing flights to leave China and infect the world,” the president of the United States said in his speech. “The Chinese government and the World Health Organization, which is virtually controlled through China, have falsely stated that there is no evidence of human-to-human transmission. “
China and WHO, to whom the president cut U. S. funds, “falsely claimed that others without symptoms would not spread the disease,” Trump said.
Criticism of China
Trump’s speech was “unusually critical of China for a speech through a U. S. president at the United Nations General Assembly,” said Julian Ku, a professor of law at Hofstra University. “By naming China guilty of the spread of the virus and calling it the “Chinese Virus,” “President Trump is looking globally to hold China accountable. “
Ku said, though skeptical, that Trump’s comments will not cause the UN to take action, “this can create global tension over China to cooperate more fully with foreign investigations into the origins of the pandemic and its spread. “
Max Abrahms, a member of the Quincy Institute, said the pandemic may, in theory, have fostered foreign cooperation in an attempt to mitigate the mutual threat. “However, Trump plays the nationalist card, accusing China of spreading this virus. This kind of argument will work well with xenophobes who love this president,” said Abrahms, also an associate professor of political science and public policy at Northeastern University.
“What China did is unforgivable,” White House spokesman Kayleigh McEnany said at Tuesday’s press conference, when asked about the president’s misleading stance toward Beijing in his speech. “There is no tyrant bigger than China when it comes to COVID. “
Speaking to the United Nations General Assembly in Beijing, Chinese President Xi Jinping said that any attempt to politicize the pandemic will be rejected and that WHO will play a leading role in the foreign reaction to coronavirus.
Responding to a pandemic
Leaders have avoided going to New York for what would be a high-profile birthday party from the 75th General Assembly consultation because of the pandemic. No country has been more affected by the coronavirus than the United States, with more than 200,000 deaths and 6. 9 million reported infections, according to Johns Hopkins University’s Coronavirus Resource Center.
Trump has received strong complaints about his pandemic management, ex-officials from his own administration added. But the president defended the American response, calling it “the highest competitive mobilization since World War II. “
Trump told the U. N. General Assembly Tuesday that the U. S. will “distribute a vaccine. We’ll defeat the virus. We’ll end the pandemic. And we will introduce an unprecedented new era of prosperity, cooperation and peace. “
United States as “peacemaker”
His speech also included references to the recent US intermediation on economic cooperation between Serbia and Kosovo, and the agreements that his administration helped negotiate to normalize Israel with Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.
Trump also discussed efforts to end the war in Afghanistan, where U. S. forces have deployed from 2001. Plans are in position of the number of infantrymen there at 4,500 to November. “As we speak, the United States is also running to end the war in Afghanistan, and we are taking our troops home. America fulfills our destiny as a peacemaker,” Trump said.
Another factor raised through Trump Iran. The United States, defying other members of the UN Security Council, said it had again imposed sanctions against Iran similar to the 2015 external agreement on the country’s nuclear program.
Other signatories to the Iran nuclear deal have rejected U. S. action, arguing that since Trump’s leadership withdrew from the pact in 2018, he has no right to use Snapback’s sanctions mechanism through the Security Council.
Promoting U. S. interests
More broadly, Trump’s speech also included the sale of his preference to prioritize U. S. interests over multilateral efforts, an issue he emphasized in annual speeches prior to the foreign organization. “For decades, the same tired voices have proposed the same failed solutions, pursuing global ambitions at the expense of their own people. But that’s when you take care of your own citizens that you find a genuine basis for cooperation,” he concluded.
Trump’s speech “reflected the fact that we’re more than 40 days away from an American election,” said Jon Alterman, president of global security and geostrategy at the Center for Strategic