Ian Bremmer: Trump Blames China for COVID-19 to Avoid Accountability as US Deaths Grow | GZERO Media
President Trump wants to be an optimistic cheerleader - how high the Dow can go, how great the economy can be. How quickly you get the deficit down despite expanding it. How few deaths we'll have - he oriented towards 60,000. At the time, 5 respected modelers of coronavirus deaths in the US, 60,000 was the most optimistic. Now we're at about 70,000 deaths, with a couple thousand more a day. President Trump and the CDC have supported phases in reopening. They're not making orders, governors are responsible, but they created the baseline. Many of the states opening have not hit those metrics. Expect significant numbers of cases. And that's while the New York metro area is seeing a reduction in cases and deaths. The rest of the country, going up. Not just from testing more; hospitalizations and deaths too. Some states are rural and case numbers are small. If it gets bad, there's time to change path. But in many states, that's not the case. Our expectation now is closer to 100,000+ over the coming month or two. That's harder for Trump to sell. He will reorient - if I hadn't done anything, we would have a million or 2.2 million deaths. But for those that heard him in the last four-eight weeks say not 100,000, hopefully 60,000; now back to 100,000 or more, that's going to hurt. Trump was at his highest level of approval, inching 46%-47%, blended rate. In the next few weeks, months, it's going to take a beating. This is relevant in what's happened to US, but also, it's why you see the Trump administration going harder against China. If you're going to be blamed for worse case load and death count in the US, and if the formulation that your administration put forward in terms of how to reopen the economy is not being adhered to by red state governors, it's hard to blame internally. You'll try. But it's much better to have an external boogey man. China is that bogey man. We know that the original virus came from Wuhan, and they covered it up for a month, while people were traveling. Five million Chinese left the region, 400+ thousand left China. The original cases (not in New York, those came from Italy, though cases from Europe had originally come from Wuhan) in Washington State, California, originally came from China. Also Iran, Europe. Now people want to litigate against the Chinese, say they should pay reparations for economic damage. That's not going to happen. But they are going to take blame. Trump sees opportunity. Pompeo, the secretary of state, said they have conclusive evidence that this came not from a wet market, but from a bio lab. Not intentionally, but security was inadequate. If that's true and the Chinese lied, even though I view the cover up as the more significant issue, that will drive bad will from the United States towards China. It makes a cold war more likely. We haven't seen that evidence. Demanding that China provide access to the lab is very different than saying, we have a smoking gun. If it's the former, it's going to be partisan, Trump supporters. If they have real evidence, the whole country is going to be baying for blood. Expect the phase one trade deal to fall apart, higher tariffs, a negative effect on American markets. But the Trump administration has a way to avoid blame. China covered it up: but the world, including the Chinese people, found out at the same time. A lot of countries managed the COVID crisis much better than the US. Small, isolated countries like Iceland, New Zealand. But also big countries like South Korea, Germany. For all that we want accountability from China, we also need to ask why the Trump administration was incapable of having a response befitting the world's greatest superpower. Why couldn't we look more like South Korea or Germany? I wouldn't expect us to look like Taiwan or New Zealand. These are tiny states, easier to close borders, more homogeneous, easier to get everyone to listen to the government. The US federal system, a lot harder. But Germany is a federal system, too, and they had more responsiveness to authority and a more scientifically oriented approach. They weren't saying everything will be awesome. An everything will be awesome Presidency, without focus on science, ultimately is likely to get us more than 100,000 deaths here in the United States. Subscribe to GZERO on YouTube: http://bit.ly/2TxCVnY For more GZERO news and videos: https://www.gzeromedia.com/ Subscribe to the GZERO podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast... Like GZERO on Facebook: / gzeromedia Follow GZERO on Twitter: / gzeromedia Follow GZERO on LinkedIn: / 18385722 GZERO Media is a multimedia publisher providing news, insights and commentary on the events shaping our world. Our properties include GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, our newsletter Signal, Puppet Regime, the GZERO World Podcast, In 60 Seconds and GZEROMedia.com Quick Take
