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Presidential debate: Donald Trump blames ‘China plague’ for US economic woes
- Among the six topics for discussion, as chosen by the debate organisers, were Covid-19, the US economy and ‘the Trump and Biden records’
- Few American voters say they are undecided, and in many states voting has already started
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US President Donald Trump used Tuesday’s first pre-election television debate to lay the blame for his country’s economic woes on China and recycle unsubstantiated claims that his challenger, Joe Biden, was beholden to China because of his son’s business dealings in the country.
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“We built the greatest economy in history, we closed it down because of the China plague,” said Trump, using language that rights groups have condemned for fanning the flames of anti-Asian racism in the US.
Though not asked directly about China during Tuesday’s debate, before a socially distanced audience of about 80 people in Cleveland, Ohio, both candidates proactively brought it up as they attacked each other on issues including economic policy and the coronavirus response.
Early on in the debate, Biden, the former vice-president, said that Trump had downplayed the severity of the pandemic and given undue praise to China’s response under President Xi Jinping’s government.
“We were insisting that … the people we had on the ground in China should be able to go to Wuhan [where the first infections were reported] and determine for themselves how dangerous this was,” Biden said.
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