Trump seeks to pin blame on China over coronavirus

Bloomberg

President Donald Trump is escalating efforts to pin blame on China for unleashing a pandemic that has killed more than 60,000 Americans and is exploring ways to hold Beijing accountable, though his options are limited because of the potential economic consequences.
Trump and his aides sharpened their criticism of Beijing, demanding answers about the virus’s origin and hinting at possible retaliation. The president tweeted that some US
television networks are “Chinese puppets,” while his super-political action committee unleashes anti-China ads and his top economic adviser issued his own warning.
“They have a lot to answer for, they’re going to be held accountable,” Larry Kudlow told CNBC. “How, what, when and why” is up to the president, he said.
While Trump’s White House has begun to discuss a crackdown on China and the president is looking for options, his focus is on containing the virus and no move is imminent, according to people familiar with the matter. Trump has not decided on a timeline to act, one said.
Trump told reporters at the White House that tariffs on China are “certainly an option” but didn’t elaborate. Kudlow rejected the idea of canceling US debt obligations to China.
The president has long sought to shift blame for the US outbreak, which exceeds more than 1 million cases. Three years into his term, he has faulted his predecessors for failing to fill the government’s stockpile of medical supplies or build a testing regime for the pandemic. He’s accused Democrats of distracting him with an impeachment trial at the beginning of the year.
His view of China’s culpability has similarly shifted. Early in the crisis, Trump repeatedly complimented Chinese President Xi Jinping and his government for their handling of the virus. The American president triumphantly signed a trade deal with a delegation of Chinese officials in January, as the outbreak was gathering steam in China’s Hubei province.
Trump’s recent pivot could splinter a bipartisan consensus in Congress, dating to before the pandemic, that the US needed to get tougher on China about trade and other issues. Republicans now want to hammer the country over its alleged obfuscation of the virus’s origin and spread and have called Democrats Chinese sympathisers or even agents for Beijing. Democrats criticise Republicans for following Trump in seeking to cut funding for the World Health Organization and say the president is trying to deflect from shortcomings in the US response.
Trump says the WHO took Chinese claims about the virus at “face value.”
But Congress and many of Trump’s advisers may balk at any retaliation that stunts the US’s own economic recovery.
“The first thing you have
to ask is: Is this going to negatively impact the US economic recovery?” said James Jay Carafano of the Heritage
Foundation, a conservative think-tank with ties to the administration.