Trump hands over keys to states on reopening plan

Bloomberg

Days after insisting he had absolute authority to steer the country’s economic recovery from the coronavirus outbreak, President Donald Trump instead handed over the keys to governors and businesses.
Trump issued guidelines for states to consider as they decide whether to relax stay-at-home orders and other social-distancing measures enacted to curb the spread of the virus.
The brief document lays out a three-stage process and leaves many difficult decisions to statehouses.
The president set no deadlines, demanded no particular action and offered little federal assistance. One page of the document says that states undertaking a resumption of normal life should plan to “independently” secure protective gear and medical equipment for their hospitals. Businesses are advised to come up with their own protocols for temperature checks, protective gear, sanitation and testing.
A national shutdown is not a sustainable long-term solution,” Trump said at his daily White House news conference. “Now that we have passed the peak in new cases, we’re starting our life again.”
Stocks extended a weekly advance as investors wagered that the American economy would soon begin to emerge from its lockdown. The S&P 500 advanced 1.5% in New York.
Trump also applied pressure to governors in three Democratic-led states — Minnesota, Michigan and Virginia — with a series of tweets that citizens “liberate” themselves.
There have been protests in the states against stay-at-home measures aimed at curbing the pandemic.

Pence and Democrats
Meanwhile, Vice President Mike Pence planned a call with Senate Democrats on the federal coronavirus response, according to the White House. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said on MSNBC that negotiations with the Trump administration for additional funds for a small business
programme that ran out of money on April 16 are making progress.
Trump said that 29 of the 50 states qualified to begin the reopening process his administration laid out or would be ready soon, naming Montana, North Dakota and Wyoming. He agreed with a questioner who suggested Hawaii.
In the best case, a state could abandon all but minimal social distancing practices within a month, under the plan. Yet it’s not clear whether most governors, business owners and workers share the president’s optimism that it will soon be safe to risk easing measures that only now appear to be slowing the virus’s spread in some hot spots, while cases and deaths continue to rise across the country.
In North Dakota and Wyoming, the number of cases are still rising, which may disqualify those states from attempting to reopen under Trump’s guidelines. Hawaii Governor David Ige, a Democrat, is “working with his cabinet and others to determine what specific milestones will be needed for Hawaii to begin a phased reopening,” spokeswoman Cindy McMillan said.
McMillan said the state does not yet believe it meets the federal criteria. A spokesman for Montana Governor Steve Bullock, a Democrat, didn’t respond to a request for comment.