What the Pandemic Owes Trump

If not for the business magnate, the pandemic would have been less deadly and not as economically severe, both in the United States and across the world.

If not for the COVID-19 pandemic, there would still be four more years of Donald Trump. However, if not for Trump, the pandemic would have probably been controlled. The pandemic destroys economies and tests every leader, notably doing this with the person who used to flaunt the title of leader of the free world. The outcome has been an “uncoordinated, chaotic, and state-centric international response to COVID-19,” which “sharply contrasts with the international response to the 2009 H1N1 pandemic and to the 2014 Ebola outbreak,” according to Yanzhong Huang, a political analyst specializing in global health (“Why the World Lost to the Pandemic,” Foreign Affairs, Jan. 28).

According to his diagnosis, the difference with respect to previous pandemics is that this one has been politicized from day one; there has been a tendency to present it as a safety crisis where the very existence of each country was at stake, which in turn forced them into a nationalistic and defensive posture. At first, there was nationalism in the competition over face masks and personal protective equipment supplies, and there is nationalism now in the race for acquiring vaccines. And worst of all, the latest and most frustrating nationalistic outbreak has taken place where it was least expected: in the European Commission.

Accountability is split, but it is double in Trump’s case, due to his pioneering approach to nationalistic politicization and confrontation, his denial and his painful and not at all exemplary absence as a leader from the global community. If not for Trump, the World Health Organization and the U.N. Security Council would have played their rightful relevant roles, China would have worked with the United States on managing the crisis and Europe would have followed. Instead, Trump chose to use COVID-19 to demonize China and advance the destruction of international institutions, trusting that the virus would vanish miraculously or that vaccines would arrive before the election. And so he left office blemished by having reached a world record of infections (25 million) and deaths (430,000).

If not for Trump, the pandemic would have been less lethal and less serious financially, both in the United States and around the world. Now that he’s gone, the Trumpism of politicization and nationalism emains embedded in us, as proven by the uneven distribution of vaccines and the shameful quarrels over supplies. Trump owes his defeat to the pandemic, but the pandemic also owes Trump a great deal of its sinister success.