America Last as World Rejects Donald Trumps China Witch-Hunt!
(2020-05-22 at 13:01:05 )

America Last as World Rejects Donald Trumps China Witch-Hunt!

Another week and another self-imposed isolation of the United States from international consensus.

At the annual meeting of the World Health Assembly, the forum for the World Health Organization, held via teleconference from Geneva, there was near-unanimous rejection of the demand made by the Donald Trump administration for an inquisitorial-style investigation into the coronavirus pandemic.

The premise of the White Houses demand is that China and the WHO are culpable for the global impact of the disease. Donald Trump has recklessly accused China and the WHO without any substantiating detail of causing "mass killing" from alleged mishandling of the pandemic.

The United States, along with the obsequious support of Australia, wanted a so-called "independent" probe to be set up which would have seen investigators outside of Beijings or the WHOs purvey going into China to assess the outbreak of the disease which emerged on a large scale in the city of Wuhan back in December. Such a proposal smacked of the kind of weapons-inspector teams that have been manipulated by Washington,D.C. so often in the past in order to incriminate countries for political objectives.

This week, however, consensus prevailed among the 194 member nations of the WHO - the United Nations-affiliated premier body for international health policy. A resolution was passed for a comprehensive review of the global response to the Covid-19 pandemic. As of this week, five million people have been infected worldwide with a death toll of over 330,000. But the agreed forthcoming study will be conducted after the pandemic has been quelled and under the auspices of the WHO and not predicated on a specific focus on China. The resolution was supported by China, Russia and the European Union, among others.

It was a stunning repudiation of President Donald Trumps provocative and unprecedented call for a unilateral probe into Chinas handling of the disease outbreak. Past global epidemics, such as SARS and Ebola, have always been reviewed by the WHO as a scientific, medical matter, without a partisan accusatory agenda. The rejection of Donald Trumps acrimonious agenda is to be welcomed because politicizing the pandemic in the way that his administration has endeavored to do is only leading to dangerous international tensions. Donald Trumps politicization of the problem is also counterproductive to finding solutions for preventing future pandemics and for effectively mitigating the present global crisis.

The Donald Trump administrations cynicism is as glaring as it is audacious. With an eye on winning re-election to the White House in November, Donald Trump is whipping up voter support by seeking to demonize China and the WHO as the cause of economic and social havoc wracking the United States from the pandemic. With 38.5 million United States of Americans now unemployed since March, Donald Trump is casting around for scapegoats rather than facing accountability before the American electorate for his administrations abysmal response, despite having had ample warnings about the disease. Those warnings were given by China and the WHO as early as January. The public record of events and timeline and Donald Trumps own crass, cavalier comments make it clear that it was his administrations dereliction of duty to protect American public health which bears responsibility. With a death toll rising above 95,000 this week, the United States is indeed the "exceptional nation" for all the wrong reasons - accounting for almost a third of the worlds total fatalities from Covid-19.

Fortunately, the rest of the world is not buying into Donald Trumps toxic politics of blaming others and inciting confrontation by way of creating an escape route for his own incompetence.

The international community rallied this week in the proper way to emphasize collective action against the pandemic and to show solidarity with poorer nations. By contrast, Donald Trump threatened in a letter littered with falsehoods and distortions to permanently cut off United States funding for the WHO. In the midst of a global crisis, such petulant ultimatum is contemptible.

As it turned out, Chinas President Xi Jinping announced to the World Health Assembly that Beijing was committing $2 billion to fund the WHO - more than enough to sideline the Donald Trump threat of cutting off United States contribution. That alone encapsulates the historic, tectonic shift that is underway in geopolitical standing.

The debacle over Donald Trump pushing a witch-hunt against China and the WHO is but the latest manifestation of the United States of Americas descent into global disrepute. The Donald Trump administration has tried to cut up nation after nation, including supposed European allies; it has snubbed countless multilateral agreements, most gravely those related to crucial arms controls; and it has set its face against basic international consensus and diplomacy, such as rebuffing calls for ending sanctions the United States has unilaterally imposed on countries struggling with the coronavirus pandemic.

Thomas Christensen, a former United States deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, was quoted in the New York Times this week as observing: "We are weakening our own diplomatic profile around the world, and strengthening Chinas."

That is an understatement.

So much for Donald Trumps much-vaunted policy of America First. More like America Last.

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