President Donald Trump gave a Tuesday campaign speech that blasted Beijing’s COVID-19 culpability, lauded his administration’s response to the pandemic and celebrated America’s abdication of the Paris climate accord and the Iran nuclear deal.
No, Trump wasn’t rallying supporters in a swing state. His address, delivered remotely, was to the United Nations General Assembly. But to both ally and adversary alike, it was clear that Trump’s rhetoric was for domestic political purposes rather than diplomatic outreach.
Trump began in the U.N. spirit when he said, “We are once again engaged in a great global struggle.” Yet any hope of rallying a “we” was likely lost when he then called COVID the “China virus” and later urged the U.N. to “hold China accountable for their actions.”
That suggestion was rejected in a subsequent address by Chinese President Xi Jinping, who said, “facing the virus, we should enhance solidarity and get the world together.”
China did indeed lie about the severity of the initial Wuhan outbreak. But the cooperation necessary to coordinate an effective global response is compromised when the president of the United States is fixated on blame instead of leading the world toward a solution.
Not that many worldwide would follow. According to a new Pew Research Center poll of citizens in 13 allied nations, only 15% of respondents said that the U.S. “has done a good job dealing with the coronavirus outbreak,” while 37% said so about China, 57% the European Union, and 64% the World Health Organization — an international institution Trump also criticized in his Tuesday address.
While demonizing Beijing’s response, Trump lauded Washington’s, saying that “we launched the most aggressive mobilization since the Second World War” — a claim that came on the day the U.S. hit the grim milestone of 200,000 COVID deaths.
That catastrophe could have been far less severe if the full might of America had actually been rapidly deployed to mitigate the impact. Instead, Trump politicized the response. At a Monday campaign rally, he said the virus “affects virtually nobody.”
The president also charged China with plastic pollution, high carbon emissions and overfishing, among other environmental transgressions. He’s right that Beijing needs to clean up its act on the environment. But China can at least claim that it’s still a party to the Paris accord, a pact that Trump called “one-sided” as he defended his administration’s record.
Again, just as with pandemics and other borderless threats, climate change is the textbook definition of a global challenge that will not be solved unless the world collectively addresses it. Abdication of a treaty meant to mitigate climate change, let alone rolling back scores of environmental regulations, will only make the problem worse.
This editorial first appeared in the Star Tribune (Minneapolis) on Wednesday. This commentary should be considered another point of view and not necessarily the opinion or editorial policy of The Dominion Post.
