Why Trump is moving closer to punishing China for the coronavirus

For months, the story of official Washington’s stance towards China amid the coronavirus pandemic has been a bit of a split screen. On one side, China “hawks” have pushed for a range of measures to punish the country economically for its perceived mishandling of the crisis while President Trump has not seemed fully on board.

One example: during an April 3 interview with Yahoo Finance, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy laid into China, saying they “lied about” the virus just a couple days after Trump tweeted China has “developed a strong understanding of the Virus,” and adding “Much respect!”

But during an appearance on Thursday in the East Room of the White House, Trump seemed to pivot and reach a new level of antipathy toward China. He suggested the virus had originated in a lab in China and even said there was a chance the government there had “let it spread.”

“It is going to be messy,” says James Carafano, vice president of the Heritage Foundation's foreign policy institute, about the economic conflict to come. “There's an enormous amount of anger at China right now and it's bipartisan.” And it’s not just in Washington, he says – “it's down into the roots of America.”

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-trump-is-moving-closer-to-punishing-china-for-the-coronavirus-200211021.html

Oh please. Maybe he can have his neckties and MAGA hats made elsewhere. Then Ivanka can have her stuff made in some other sweatshop friendly country. Otherwise I'm not sure there's of anything Trump can do beyond his desperate attempt at distraction.