Us = the world/humanity, not the USA. China's economic growth has lifted hundreds of millions from poverty, and it would not have happened without globalization.
Lifted millions out of poverty at the expense of millions of middle class American jobs. I believe globalization largely did not end up in the best interest of most Americans because the transfer of technology and manufacturing did not result in a new American ally, but rather a strategic competitor. For over a decade now we've seen a rift in the interests of the common people and the elites in the United States, which is why we've seen the resurgence of populism.
> our supply chain for essential pharmaceuticals and medical equipment farmed out to evil, duplicitous regimes like the Chinese state.
There's a legitimate discussion to be had about medical equipment supply chains, but describing China this way does a huge disservice to that discussion.
> They ... probably killed the doctors who blew the whistle on the cover-up. These are facts, not conjecture.
That's not killing. It's negligent and reprehensible, just like the trivialization of the disease's seriousness by the US president was negligent and reprehensible.
There will be many unnecessary deaths as a result of both leaders' inaction. That doesn't make it murder on either of their parts.
In the US at least, the dismantling of the public health systems in the name of efficiency is something that occurred in several previous administrations of both parties, backed by a public who supported those cuts in order to receive greater investment returns and lower taxes.
And what if POTUS was listening to the WHO experts who were parroting the lies of the CCP that human transmission wasn't happening, and then that even if it was an epidemic it wasn't a pandemic?
Furthermore in what way was the US public health system dismantled? The US was best suited to take on Coronavirus because of its significant number of ICU beds and the number of ventilators compared to the rest of the West. The unfortunate fact is that CDC's tests failed and that left the US flat-footed when it was otherwise better positioned to tackle the crisis than most.
It wasn't that he was listening to the WHO, it was that he was outright denying the severity and spreading misinformation implying the imminent availability of a vaccine. He's hasn't been a benign pass-through in the development of the situation:
