The COVID 19 disaster has certainly given a handy tool for critics of Trump to browbeat him. The question is whether President Obama could have handled the COVID 19 crisis in any way better than President Trump.
by N.S.Venkataraman
China is one country which is extremely interested in the outcome of the forthcoming Presidential election in the USA and must be hoping against hope that President Trump would be unseated.
Until the time that Trump assumed office as President of the USA, China had a nearly smooth run towards achieving it’s goal of becoming a global superpower.
Certainly, President Trump tried to apply a brake on China’s unchallenged strategies to dominate the world and his work is still in progress. However, China has already felt the intensity of the war of attrition in the trade and other front launched by President Trump and would want President Trump to be defeated in the Presidential poll. This would be in China’s interest. Chinese government, known for it’s unethical strategies, will go to any extent to influence the American voters against President Trump.
It is widely reported that some leading media houses in the USA have earned large revenue from China in various ways such as by way of advertisement, sponsored articles etc. It is becoming increasingly obvious that media has tend to become more business oriented than service oriented
In such circumstances, one cannot miss the fact that for the last four years, section of American media and “think tanks” have been critical about every pronouncement and policy decision of President Trump .
This approach of the section of the media is bound to make Chinese government happy and strengthen it’s hopes that Trump would be defeated in the Presidential poll.
If one would take an overall comparative view of President Trump’s four year governance with the earlier eight year governance of President Obama, it would become clear that there is no reason to think that President Obama’s administration was any way better than that of Trump ,based on a study of the scenario in a holistic manner.
The COVID 19 disaster has certainly given a handy tool for critics of Trump to browbeat him. The question is whether President Obama could have handled the COVID 19 crisis in any way better than President Trump. This is unlikely ,since the options before the US President and the US government in dealing with the crisis are very limited.
The ground reality is that when COVID 19 started in Wuhan in China and China did not forewarn the world about the severity of the virus and W H O either protected China’s stand or was itself ignorant of the seriousness of matter, and when the virus spread across the world, the entire world was caught unaware.
Even today, there are differences of views amongst the scientists, medical researchers and doctors about the appropriate treatment for the virus ,with no proven drug or vaccine being available. Therefore, with no clue and facing a desperate situation , it was suggested that mask should be worn, hands should be cleaned frequently etc. Some scientists said that the virus would go away with the onset of the hot season but it did not happen that way. Some scientists have said that the virus is airborne and therefore, the social distancing will not help. Some even said that a mask is not the sure way to block the spread of virus.
Even as the research efforts to develop appropriate vaccine are underway in several countries , scientists started examining whether existing drugs could be used. This is how hydroxy chloroquine tablet was suggested by some scientists. When President Trump suggested hydroxy chloroquine drug , he was ridiculed by the media and the critics , even as some scientists supported the use of hydroxychloroquine drug. So many other existing drugs are now being tried. Meanwhile, traditional medicines are suggested by several sources. What President Trump can do under the circumstances?
It is said that President Trump did not take this crisis seriously at the early stage in the month of February,2020 . He said that the virus crisis would go away soon and America would remain protected, based on the observations of several sources. Trump thought that wearing a mask may not be necessary and some people in the USA and elsewhere were highly critical about the suggestion to wear a mask. There were even public demonstrations.
Even while sections of the media and critics use America’s COVID 19 crisis as a trump card to unseat President Trump, the thinking Americans should examine whether any other American President would have done better.
The central theme of Trump’s campaign before the last election was “America first”. Obviously, this means that unchecked immigration to America has to be stopped and American investment going to China has to be curtailed. This also means that China is exploiting the American market by dumping goods and taking away American technologies to China by clever and , sometimes, by dubious strategies , have to be put to an end. This is what President Trump has been trying to do.
Obviously, China would think that President Trump getting one more term would halt China’s march towards global super power status decisively.
Several pollsters in recent times have said that President Trump would lose the election and China must be extremely happy about such a forecast.
It remains to be seen whether American voters would please China by unseating President Trump.
Certainly, Trump has been the first President of the USA to attempt to stop China’s greed for territorial expansion and economic domination of the world.
The American voters should not forget that President Obama did nothing to stop China’s ambitious goal plans and even went out of the way to keep China in good humour. One glaring example is that President Obama received the Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama through the back door of the White House , so that China would not be displeased.
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