Countdown 89 days

TRUMP’S CHINA CONUNRUM                         

For the last 3 1/2 years Trump has had the whole gamut of relations with Xi the Chinese President. The policies Trump has pursued have been hap-hazard and counter-productive in most cases. China has eaten his breakfast, lunch, and dinner in his efforts with tariffs. Trump worked hard initially with Xi, charming him with his walk through the gilded Mar-a Lago resort, and when Trump was in Beijing he posed photos with Xi in the forbidden city in a photo op. 

Trump had previously praised China and called Xi his “friend” in January, when major trade negotiations were ongoing. At first news of the outbreak, he initially praised Xi and China for controlling the virus. When the virus was already on our shores Trump shut off travel. The U.S. was the 24^th country to ban flights from China and the 38^th country to ban European flights.  Even with the ban, over 400,000 individuals came from Europe and another 40,000 from China. These were mostly US citizens (some with Covid-19) and were not quarantined. The outbreak caused Trump to declare a national state of emergency, when WHO declared it a pandemic. At this time, he should have fully implemented the Defense Production Act (DPA). After all, it was a national emergency. 

Trump sees an emergency is an opportunity to re-direct and miss-allocate resources to his friends and spite any perceived enemies. Was it the fact that the bigger the emergency, the more resources can be manipulated, which caused Trump to ignore the pandemic? Or was he using the time to figure out how he and his cronies supporting his re-election can profit off the Covid-19 misery? Now that’s a couple of conspiracy theories!

 When Trump found he was knee deep in a pandemic, he changed his tune. Trump was initially convinced it was a virus like the flu. He ignored the underlying science and medicine and his brain could not accept his notion that a Coronavirus is not just like any other and it would just go away and convinced himself it would not be so bad.  Once the Trump information bubble collects and only lets in information that confirms his desires, he does not let that bit of data be changed. As a performer, once he puts the script in memory, it does not change for any performance.

This brain freeze lasted 60 days, just enough time for the pandemic to begin to ravage Seattle, New York and California. Each of these areas Trump sees as democratic bastions.  With Trump’s Marie Antoinette attitude in these areas, “let them eat cake”, he delays the efforts associated with testing.  Repeating the claim that the more you test the more cases you find. 

Another of his efforts to distance himself from the fallout of his inadequate response killing thousands, was to assign Mike Pence as Covid virus czar. Of course he undermined the Pence efforts by using Jarod Kushner as the one to politicize and monetize the PPE. Trump’s team, after they set up for-profit companies with the ability to mass-produce the PPE, the team congratulates themselves and washed their hands. Trump then turns all efforts over to the individual 50 states, to go after these limited resources that had yet to keep up with PPE demand. Kushner, the pompous idiot, failed. The companies promised millions of masks and yet the requirement is for hundreds of millions and ultimately billions of PPE units before it’s over.  That is why some areas are now suffering for lack of PPE. What will happen with PPE in the winter, when flu season overlaps the pandemic? Why did you not use the DPA? Was it money?  Politics? Either one of these is despicable in a public health crisis, every indication the motivation was both.

This was the beginning of Trump’s efforts to politicize the pandemic. With the CDC initially blowing testing and Trump’s initial inaction and downplaying the virus, Trump decided it was more beneficial not to be associated with the response or get tainted with his initial failures. He assigns the Pence team, turns responsibility to the states and became a sideline cheerleader. Rah! Rah! Rah! The trifecta is to blame China and the grand slam is to tag Obama and Joe Biden and blame them for the situation Trump has made for himself.

Trump is sounding the Joe Biden / China connection, with Biden and Xi shown as chumming around. Biden had boasted of tutoring Xi on American politics during long walks and quiet dinners. When Xi was vice president and heir apparent Biden spent endless hours with Xi developing a relationship and promoting democratic values. He also helped forge relationships between China and Hollywood movie moguls. The Trump campaign sees anti-China sentiment as a powerful weapon and intends to use this as an issue tying Biden to China, a double foil for Trump. This is the same as last election that had the Republican mantra against Hillary as a globalist. P.S.- The claimed Hillary policy is a better economic policy than being an isolationist.  Isolation will eventually create inflation, insecurity and a race to the bottom. Trump’s policies have been curious at best, the tacit approval of China rounding up and put in re-education (concentration) camps the Uyghurs a Muslim minority in China. 

John Bolton’s book reveals that Trump was actively pursuing Xi for help with the elections and trying to brand Biden as “Beijing Biden”.  The campaign thinks that Biden will pay a heavy political price for his association with China, if they keep the attacks coming. 

Trump has his issues with China. His recognition that Hong Kong is a Chinese problem is a total renunciation of the UK agreement with China and the Chinese government promised not to interfere until the terms of the agreement expires and Trump gives Xi the OK to suppress the population of Hong Kong and the Uyghurs. The Bolton book has taken its toll suggesting Trump put his and his family’s interests and politics over the national interests, when negotiating with the China. 

Prior to the Bolton book, the polls were a toss-up as who was better suited to deal with China, Trump or Biden. Since June, Trump lost 10 points in the same polls. Trump has continued with the Biden/China attack. 

To piss off Xi, the Trump administration is actively pursuing a sale of military hardware to Taiwan, to tweak Xi’s nose. The United States, for the last 50 years has sold military hardware to Taiwan, which is a Chinese satellite and an autonomous state. Taiwan purchased F-16s and were going to buy the F-20s until the Air Force squashed the deal by making a version of the F-16 in the 1970s. I was on the F-20 program when we were seling the F-20 to Taiwan.  General Dynamics made an end run and dumbed down their aircraft for foreign sales. Due to higher production levels combined with F-16 Air Force sales, the F-16 was made cheaper than the newly developed F-20. After, I had produced the Risk Work Authorization (RWA) documents monthly, asking for and receiving funding for the program. Each month the RWA was briefed to my VP and then went to T.V. Jones, CEO of Northrop. The last RWA was asking T.V. Jones to spend over 1 billion dollars in development monies for the program. That’s how I know that Taiwan has purchased weapons from the U.S for decades. I was involved.