Trump’s GOP Blames China for Coronavirus With Eye on 2020 (1)

Republicans are ratcheting up efforts to paint China as the villain in the coronavirus pandemic, seeking to shift blame as President Donald Trump faces increased criticism of his handling of a crisis that has shuttered the U.S. economy.

The Trump campaign on Tuesday sent out a fundraising email that accused China of “lying” about the outbreak and saying the country must be held accountable, language that is harsher than the president has used himself.

Senator Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, introduced a bill that would make the Chinese government liable for civil claims in U.S. courts if it’s found to have withheld information related to the virus. And House Republicans’ election committee issued a statement calling a freshman Democrat who flipped a Republican-held seat in 2018 a “Chinese asset.”

WATCH: The U.S.-China blame game is accelerating, says think tank Chatham House.

(Source: Bloomberg)

The president announced Tuesday he would halt U.S. funding for the World Health Organization, accusing the United Nations agency of taking Chinese claims about the disease “at face value.” Trump repeatedly complimented the Chinese government’s handling of the outbreak in January and February.

Read more: Trump Halts U.S. Payments to WHO, Saying It Failed to Share Data

China has “serious concerns” about Trump’s decision and called on the U.S. to fulfill its responsibilities, foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said at a briefing in Beijing on Wednesday. Zhao said the U.S. move “will weaken the WHO’s capabilities and undermine international cooperation.”

The Associated Press reported that Chinese officials waited six days before warning the public of the outbreak in Wuhan after they determined they likely were facing a pandemic from a new coronavirus. The Chinese government has repeatedly said it reported the outbreak to the WHO and has denied suppressing information about the virus initially.

The U.S. coronavirus outbreak, at nearly 600,000 cases and more than 25,000 dead, stands to dominate the 2020 election. The pandemic has collapsed the economy, which less than two months ago was the centerpiece of Trump’s re-election effort. Democrats have sought to portray his handling of the crisis as inept, and he has responded in part by blaming his White House predecessors, U.S. governors -- and China.

“China has been lying and doing everything they can to cover up the spread of Covid-19 in their country. It’s absolutely disgraceful and we can’t stand by and do nothing,” Trump’s campaign said in the fundraising email sent Tuesday. “President Trump has always been tough on China, but he can’t hold them accountable on his own.”

Lisa Burns, a Quinnipiac University professor who specializes in political messaging, called the effort “playing to the base” of the Republican Party.

“The default was to go back to the China excuse and deflecting to China,” she said in an interview. “When you’re playing to a base, looking for that red meat, scapegoating is one of your best strategies.”

Congressional Democrats called Trump’s move to halt WHO funding “a desperate attempt” to absolve himself, and said it was illegal.

“The president does not have the unilateral authority to withhold the United States’ assessed contribution to the World Health Organization. Moreover, refusing to fund the WHO is a foolish step that only weakens international tools to fight this pandemic and future global health emergencies,” House Appropriations Committee spokesman Evan Hollander said in a statement.

“Not wanting to take responsibility as the deaths continue to mount, he blames others,” Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont said of the president in a statement. “WHO could have been stricter with China and called for travel restrictions sooner, but it is performing an essential function and needs our strong support.”

China Critic

Trump entered the White House as a China critic who has blamed the country for declines in U.S. manufacturing jobs. In 2018, he began imposing tariffs on Chinese imports, leading to what his administration called a “phase one” trade deal in December with the Beijing government. That history gives him “a lot of credibility” as he seeks to pin blame on China for the coronavirus outbreak, said Scott Jennings, a Republican strategist who’s worked on four presidential campaigns.

“The Trump administration, the president, his allies need to -- and are going to be -- all-in on the idea that China is a bad actor with their lies and the coverup that unleashed this on the world and made it exponentially worse,” Jennings said in an interview.

That point of view has been buttressed by Republican lawmakers who have said the Chinese government or its allies should be held to account for the outbreak, which began in the city of Wuhan in Hubei province.

Hawley’s bill would create a State Department task force to investigate the Chinese government’s handling of the coronavirus and allow Americans to sue the country’s government for actions including silencing whistle-blowers and withholding information about the spread of the disease. U.S. courts would be able to freeze Chinese government assets.

“There is overwhelming evidence that the Chinese Communist Party’s lies, deceit and incompetence caused Covid-19 to transform from a local disease outbreak into a global pandemic,” Hawley said in a statement.

One of his Republican colleagues, Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, has said that unsubstantiated allegations the virus originated in Chinese laboratories near Wuhan should be investigated and that the country should be held accountable for the global outbreak.

‘Chinese Asset’

Down the ballot, Republican strategists in congressional races have targeted Democrats who have publicly defended the Chinese people or their leadership.

During a recent tele-town hall hosted by AARP, Democratic Representative Sean Casten of Illinois fielded questions about the role of Chinese “wet markets” in spreading the virus and its zoonotic origins. “We need to be careful about laying the blame on a particular cultural practice in a country that we don’t live in,” he said.

The National Republican Congressional Committee responded Tuesday in a statement that alleged the congressman had either been “duped” by the Chinese Communist Party or is a “Chinese asset.”

“Sean Casten’s bizarre commentary around coronavirus is raising serious questions about the Chinese Communist Party’s hold over him,” the NRCC spokeswoman, Carly Atchison, said.

Separately, the NRCC assailed a Democratic congressional candidate on Long Island, Perry Gershon, in an April 8 release for saying in a virtual town hall four days earlier that “there’s a misconception around that the Chinese were not sufficient in disseminating information -- that they tried to keep things for themselves.”

Atchison said in the release that “it is disgusting that while Long Islanders are dying from a pandemic made worse by Chinese government lies, Perry Gershon chooses to defend the Chinese Communist Party and spew their propaganda.”

Gershon is challenging Republican Representative Lee Zeldin in a rematch. Zeldin won by 4.1 percentage points in 2018.

“Our response to the ridiculous and misleading NRCC attack is the only one it merited,” Kim Devlin, a senior adviser to Gershon’s campaign, said in a statement. “We raised money off of it.”

Casten defeated six-term Republican Peter Roskam in 2018 to represent a district that includes parts of the west and northwest suburbs of Chicago. Jeanne Ives, a Republican former state legislator, is challenging Casten this year.

Chloe Hunt, the campaign manager for Casten’s re-election campaign, said in a statement, “These nonsense political attacks are distracting from the real crisis at hand. If these bogus claims are what the NRCC and Jeanne Ives are focused on, it’s clear they don’t have their priorities straight.”

(Updates with Chinese response starting in fifth paragraph.)

To contact the reporters on this story:
Mario Parker in Washington at mparker22@bloomberg.net;
Billy House in Washington at bhouse5@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Alex Wayne at awayne3@bloomberg.net

John Harney

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