Trump says China 'will do anything they can' to see him lose 2020 race amid faltering reelection prospects
President Donald Trump has found his electoral prospects taking a big hit because of the COVID-19 pandemic. With the number of deaths continuing unabated and the economy remaining in jeopardy, it is becoming increasingly uncertain if Trump can beat Joe Biden to win the White House for another four years. And just as he discovers a reason every time he faces a challenge, Trump has blamed China for his own difficulties.
On Wednesday, April 29, the Republican commander-in-chief said China “will do anything they can” to see him lose the re-election and it was evident from its handling of the coronavirus.
While the virus is commonly believed to have originated from a wet market in the Chinese city of Wuhan, another theory is also doing the rounds that it actually started from a biohazard lab. A number of countries, including the US, are keeping a close watch on scientists who have worked in the Wuhan lab as the suspicion over China’s mishandling of the pandemic has snowballed. Beijing has also been accused of misleading the world about the pandemic and Trump has also cursed the World Health Organization saying it was biased towards China and did not cooperate with the US when the outbreak looked threatening. Trump has also called the virus “Chinese” a number of times in the recent past to draw ire both at home and abroad.
'I can do a lot,' says Trump targeting China
In an interview to Reuters in the Oval Office, the mercurial leader spoke strongly about China and said he was assessing different options in terms of the consequences that Beijing can face over the pandemic. “I can do a lot,” added Trump, who recently said there would be consequences if China was “knowingly responsible” for the disaster.
The US is the only country in the world with over a million confirmed cases and has the highest death toll of almost 61,000. The economy has also gone into a downturn with a minimum of 26 million people having lost jobs. Trump himself has been accused of not taking the matter seriously in the early stage and that saw the virus spreading like wildfire across the nation. His administration has also been accused of not cooperating with the states in rushing aides while the president himself has been mocked for making bizarre claims of curing the disease, like by injecting disinfectants.
The president has now passed the buck to China, saying Beijing should have been more protective in alerting the world about the pandemic much earlier. “China will do anything they can to have me lose this race,” he said, suspecting Beijing wants his Democratic opponent to win the race to ease the pressure that Trump has put on China over trade and other issues. Both the campaigns of Trump and Biden have been trying to prove the other weaker on China in the run-up to the November polls.
“They’re constantly using public relations to try to make it like they’re innocent parties,” he said about Chinese officials.
The Republican said the trade deal that he made with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping aiming a reduction in chronic US trade deficits with the Chinese had been “upset very badly” by the economic fallout the virus has caused.
The Reuters report also hinted at possible friction between the two economic powerhouses. It cited a senior official of the Trump administration who said on Wednesday that an informal “truce” in the battle of words that Trump and Xi essentially agreed to over telephone in late March now seems to be over.
While the two had promised that their respective governments would extend all possible cooperation to contain the virus, the two sides have attacked each other more often over the origin of the virus. The Chinese side, which earlier alleged that it was the American participants who brought the virus in China during the military games in Wuhan last October, recently accused the US leadership saying it is attacking China to divert the attention from its own failure in dealing with the crisis.