<![CDATA[Coronavirus: Donald Trump condemned for closing off US as pandemic fears spread]>
US President Donald Trump set off a storm of confusion, concern and condemnation on both sides of the Atlantic on Thursday as he ordered an unprecedented ban on most travel from Europe, in his first major move to protect Americans from the coronavirus pandemic.
His unilateral decision to shut out arrivals from 26 member countries of the Schengen border-free travel zone was slammed by the European Union, while the news sparked chaos at airports, triggered more stock market panic and raised the prospect of lasting economic and political impacts.
"We will be suspending all travel from Europe to the United States for the next 30 days. The new rules will go into effect Friday at midnight," Trump said in a televised address to the nation from the White House, citing advice from public health leaders "to keep new cases from entering our shores".
While he exempted only Britain in his speech, his administration quickly followed up with a clarification that the ban would not be so drastic, and American citizens and green card holders would be allowed back in subject to quarantine rules.
He also caused stock market alarm by declaring the ban would "apply to the tremendous amount of [transatlantic] trade and cargo", before correcting himself later by tweeting that trade would "in no way be affected".
With the US reporting more than 1,100 confirmed Covid-19 cases and 38 deaths, and his administration under fire for its slow response, Trump was out to assure Americans he would do what it took to protect them, while also blaming other countries for the public health crisis threatening his re-election campaign.
"This is the most aggressive and comprehensive effort to confront a foreign virus in modern history," Trump said, also accusing the EU of failing to take similar action.
The US is temporarily closed to visitors from 26 European countries. Photo: Xinhua alt=The US is temporarily closed to visitors from 26 European countries. Photo: Xinhua
The EU did not mince words in its reply, hitting back at Trump for taking action "unilaterally and without consultation".
"The coronavirus is a global crisis, not limited to any continent, and it requires cooperation rather than unilateral action," it said.
In the space of about three months, Covid-19 has expanded from an outbreak of a pneumonia-like illness linked to a wet market in the central China city of Wuhan to a pandemic engulfing more than 100 countries. It has killed more than 4,700 people and infected close to 127,000, mostly in China, which continues to record a slowdown in new infections.
On Thursday, China reported only 15 new confirmed cases, taking its total to 80,793, with 3,169 deaths.
"In general, the peak of the current epidemic in China is over," National Health Commission spokesman Mi Feng said, while urging local authorities not to let their guard down.
While China is now claiming success in containing the disease, Europe has become the new focus with Covid-19 cases surging across the continent and German Chancellor Angela Merkel warning that up to 70 per cent of the country's population could get infected.
Italy, while imposing a national lockdown, saw its death toll soar to more than 800 this week, the worst fatality rate outside China, while France has reported more than 2,200 infections.
"A real threat right now is Europe. That's where the new cases are coming in. Europe is the new China," US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention director Robert Redfield told lawmakers.
Huang Jing, an academic at Beijing Language and Culture University's Institute of International and Regional Studies said Trump's travel ban was unprecedented since the end of World War II.
"To the dismay of European countries, the unilateral step comes at a time when the world is looking to the US for leadership during a global public health crisis," he said.
In his speech, Trump said he would also use emergency authority to free up more than US$200 billion to pump into the economy.
The pandemic has shredded world economic growth forecasts and sent financial markets and oil prices on a roller-coaster ride not seen since the global financial crisis of 2008. It has raised the prospect of a global recession, and beyond that, threatens to dismantle political and economic structures built over the past 70 years.
"Even before the outbreak, anti-globalism, nationalism, protectionism and selective decoupling in most major countries in the world were speeding up," said Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Beijing's Renmin University.
The pandemic might be gone within six months, but it could reinforce those broader trends and reshape the global order, he said.
While the global health emergency should have been an opportunity for major powers to join hands and fight a shared threat, it ended up becoming a battlefield pitting them against each other instead, said Zhu Feng, an international affairs expert at Nanjing University.
"The coronavirus pandemic will have profound impacts on international relations and global economic and social order," he said. "It will exacerbate the global economic slowdown that is already under way and complicate relations between major powers, especially between the US, China and Russia."
The post-Cold War world order and globalisation would be hit hard, Zhu said, and the global supply chain would be reshaped to reduce reliance on China.
"Uncertainties over the pandemic will fuel social tensions, bring about an increase in internal disarray in many countries such as Iran, Saudi Arabia and North Korea, and put many of the world's volatile flashpoints under strain," he said.
With major powers bickering and disengaging from each other, a new world order was not going to take shape any time soon, and a long period of turbulence and conflict could be ahead, Zhu said.
Huang suggested that by self-isolating the US from the EU, Trump was also living up to the campaign promises that his support base expected.
"The move has yet again underlined Trump's 'America first' doctrine, at the expense of its European allies this time, and the declining transatlantic relationship," he said.
Gal Luft, co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security in Washington, said if the pandemic caused a recession it would have implications for the US-China relationship, which was already under strain from their ongoing trade war.
"The crisis will only broaden the rift between the two countries, causing jealousy and blame games instead of cooperation," he said.
"No doubt a crisis that exposes US weakness will embolden China, as was the case after the financial crisis. In 2008 China saved the US economy through its stimulus package and purchase of US$800 billion of US debt. This time around China will not be there to come to the rescue."
Additional reporting by Jun Mai
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This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
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