If We Buy Trump�s Story That Covid-19 Is China Attacking America, Then Trump
Is Personally Responsible For Over 90,000 Dead Americans And Counting

May 17, 2020 by Walt Thiessen

MAGA hat wearers will have a fit over this headline, but it�s logic is
unavoidable and beyond dispute. Let me show you why.

In July 2018, President Donald J. Trump declared a trade war on China. This
was a trade war that no one (other than MAGA hat wearers) wanted. Democrats
didn�t want it. Independents didn�t want it. Our allies didn�t want it. Only
Trump and his rabid followers wanted it, and they got what they demanded.

Over the course of the next 18 months, he kept ratcheting up the pressure,
pouring on high punitive tariff after high punitive tariff. Finally, in
January 2020, Trump declared victory.

Except that now he�s claiming that the Chinese created Covid-19 in a
counterattack on the U.S.

I want to make clear that I think his claims (like most of his claims in all
areas of his administration) are unfounded lies. There is absolutely no
evidence that Covid-19 was created by the Chinese, no matter what nonsense
Fox and OAN continue to spew about it. Among other things, people pushing the
absurd theory must explain how the Chinese conspiracy actually began nearly
90 years ago, because 1967 is when the first corona virus first appeared in
humans, and the first corona virus appeared in animals in the early 1930s. So
if the Trump theory is correct, this conspiracy has been going on since
before the Communist took over in China in 1948. That�s some mighty
impressive advance planning in anticipation of a trade war with Trump�s
America in 2018!

If Trump and his allies really expect us to take his wildly irrational claim
seriously that the Chinese are deliberately attacking the U.S. by inventing
and deploying the Covid-19 virus onto our shores, then the conclusion is
inescapable. Such an attack can only be framed as a response to Trump
starting and then rapidly escalating the trade war that he declared on China
two years ago in July 2018.

This means that Trump is personally responsible for the deaths of over 90,000
Americans from Covid-19, if we truly honor his absurd line of reasoning, and
that number will only increase in the days, weeks, and months ahead. Donald
Trump�s trade war, by his own argument, led to the death of over 90,000
Americans, because if not for his trade war, China would never have
(allegedly) attacked the United States.

After all, China had no reason to attack us before the trade war. You don�t
kill the goose that lays the golden egg. Before Trump, China was a growing
economy, and it�s #1 trade partner was the U.S. Trump claimed that they had
gotten that way through unfair trade practices. In other words, China had an
unfair advantage, in his view. Given the circumstances at that time, China
would have been insane to try to create a Covid-19 virus in order to attack
the U.S. with it. Why kill the #1 source of your new wealth? It makes no
sense at all.

The real truth here is that Trump, like he has done so often before, is
trying to manufacture a crisis in order to get himself re-elected. But this
particular crisis he is trying to create will ultimately backfire on him.

As Southerners are so fond so saying, �That dog won�t hunt.�