Opinion | Trump is losing the coronavirus blame game with China, and it’s costing American lives

A pandemic is enveloping the world, endangering the lives and livelihoods of millions of people, and US President Donald Trump is thinking about how to get the upper hand vis-à-vis China. But his obsession with winning this great power competition – exemplified by his administration’s petty insistence on calling Covid-19 the “Chinese virus” or the “Wuhan virus” – is making victory less likely every day.

Nobody doubts that the coronavirus disease, Covid-19, first appeared in China. Nor does anyone deny that Chinese bureaucrats were wrong to suppress information about it early on, rather than take immediate action to contain it. But, for most of the world, what matters is not so much where the pandemic started, but how it will end. And, as it stands, China is doing a lot more to help end the outbreak than the United States is.

Despite their early missteps, it did not take long for China’s leaders to recognise their initial mistake and take decisive action. The government sealed off affected areas, locked down a huge swathe of the population, built designated Covid-19 hospitals, and ramped up production of necessary equipment, including test kits, masks and ventilators.

The lockdowns may have been draconian, but China’s strategy seems to have worked. Within a few weeks, new infections began to decline, and new local infections have reportedly stopped. Steps are now being taken to ease the lockdowns.

Unlike China, the US had plenty of warning that Covid-19 was coming. But, rather than take action, Trump downplayed the threat, dithered before fulfilling his pledge to use the Defence Production Act to force private companies to manufacture vital equipment, and refused to impose a nationwide shelter-in-place order.