Coronavirus: will Donald Trump blame China for expected global recession in 2020?

Donald Trump tweet on Monday noted that Washington will support those US industries hit by the ‘Chinese virus’ outbreak

Analysts suggest that while China engaged in early cover up of virus, US initial response failure may render blame game ineffective

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A woman walks through a lightly trafficked Times Square in New York, Monday, March 16, 2020. Bars and restaurants will become takeaway-only and businesses from cinemas and casinos to gyms and beyond will be closed. Photo: AP

Published: 6:00am, 18 Mar 2020Updated: 3:42pm, 19 Mar 2020

On Monday, US President Donald Trump posted a tweet suggesting that China was responsible for the global economic damage that will be caused by the coronavirus pandemic, because the virus was first detected there.

The tweet may come to be viewed as the first shot in a blame game between the world’s two largest economies, as they look to fault the other for an incoming global recession that analysts now see as inevitable this year.

That the economy is set to nosedive in a US election year provides greater motivation for Trump to find a scapegoat, as he looks to shore up his domestic support.

Whether Trump’s blame game will produce results, or whether it will fall flat on its face given his own shortcomings in responding to the coronavirus outbreak, remains to be seen, analysts said. In any case, it will worsen already frayed relations between Beijing and Washington.

Until now, the verbal duel between China and the US had focused on the pandemic’s origin.

US national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, accused China of a cover up, which he said delayed the global response by “at least two months”, while US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has regularly labelled the illness the “Wuhan coronavirus”.

China has responded by suggesting the virus did not originate in China and backing a conspiracy theory that it was imported into China by a visiting US military delegation. That theory went viral on Chinese social media and caused the US to summon the Chinese ambassador to complain.