Coronavirus crisis? Trump’s bromance with Xi is going strong and he can blame everything on the Democrats anyway

The US president has suggested that investors are panicking not because of Covid-19 but because of the Democratic presidential debates. It’s doubtful that even the Chinese propaganda machine could stretch the truth that far

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US President Donald Trump takes a question during a news conference on the coronavirus outbreak, at the White House on Saturday. Photo: Reuters

Published: 3:00am, 3 Mar 2020Updated: 4:33am, 3 Mar 2020

US President Donald Trump is absolutely correct to push back at critics who faulted him for the travel restrictions that the immigration authorities put in place a month ago.

But to hear Trump tell the story, it was his political opponents from the Democratic Party that assailed the decision to restrict travel from China, even though the Chinese foreign ministry was much more critical.

Once again, Trump’s bromance with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, overrides any coherent foreign policy response and redirects recrimination back to his opponents in Washington.

Last week, Trump told the White House press corps that he had “a long talk” with Xi. News of the call sparked curiosity about what the leaders of the world’s two largest economies might have said or agreed on, but the only takeaway Trump offered was that Americans “can count on reports coming out of China” regarding the spread of Covid-19 there.

This was after Nancy Messonnier, director of the US Centres for Disease Control’s National Centre for Immunisation and Respiratory Diseases, said in a press briefing a day earlier that it was just a matter of time before community transmissions of Covid-19 emerge in the US.

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