China's Power Is a Virus

When a nation bears the blame for more than 7 million deaths worldwide, what is Washington going to do?

More than 1.2 million Americans died as a result of a plague that began in China.

Those staggering global and U.S. figures are the numbers reported to the World Health Organization.

They make the COVID-19 pandemic arguably the deadliest event the human race has suffered since World War II.

The presence of the Wuhan Institute of Virology in the city where the scourge originated raised suspicions from the start — was this an unnatural disaster?

China was studying coronaviruses in that laboratory, conducting "gain of function" research that often makes pathogens more infectious and deadly.

Yet much of America's media reflexively dismissed any possibility of a lab leak, calling it a conspiracy theory born of racist paranoia.

That labeling didn't silence the discussion:

If anything, hearing some of the same organizations that staked their credibility on assurances of Joe Biden's physical and mental fitness to serve as president insist a lab-leak scenario was just a conspiracy theory made many Americans all the more determined to ask the questions they're told not to ask.

Now the Trump administration has weighed in, unveiling a new White House web page last month titled "Lab Leak: The True Origins of COVID-19."

If President Donald Trump thinks Chinese experiments are responsible for more than a million American deaths, though, just how tough is he willing to get on Beijing?

He's prepared to punish other nations for the toll their trade strategies have taken on us in dollar terms.

China is the biggest offender there, too, but the cost of COVID has been incalculably greater — in lives, not just national wealth.

The president hit China with staggering tariffs on "Liberation Day," April 2, and if "liberation" meant anything, it was supposed to mean freeing America from Beijing's economic grasp.

Yet disentangling the trade relationship between China and America is difficult and painful, and with Wall Street howling in agony, Trump pulled back, dropping tariffs on Chinese goods from 145% to 30% for the next 90 days, after he already carved out exceptions for products like smartphones and computers.

China is economically vulnerable right now, as more manufacturing moves to neighboring nations where wages are lower, including India and Vietnam.

Trump has the tools to change China's place in the world economy, keeping it from becoming so central to the global system that no nation could hold it responsible for the next horror emerging from the labs or caves of the Middle Kingdom.

Rather than easing the tariffs on China, the administration should put Beijing at a comparative disadvantage and prioritize tariff relief for the developing nations that are China's emerging rivals — and, in many cases, its wary next-door neighbors.

Punitive measures against the Chinese economy won't bring back the victims of COVID, of course.

But their lives must not be forgotten, and there is a moral dimension to constraining China as surely as there are strategic and economic ones.

The moral indictments against the Chinese Communist Party were overwhelming long before the COVID era, with the party guilty over decades for the deaths of tens of millions of Chinese and the ongoing oppression of billions, to say nothing of the occupation of Tibet and the brutal torments inflicted upon Uyghurs, other minorities, and dissidents.

None of that criminality stopped the rest of the world, including wrongheaded American administrations, from accepting China as an indispensable partner in trade, raising the Communist regime to superpower status — an aspiring hegemon in its region with outposts and economic colonies spread across the globe.

Yet the whole world felt that lash of COVID, and if that searing experience doesn't change the way the community of nations handles risks from China, there will be more to come.

Nothing was able to stop the pestilence that began in China six years ago, but a war that might prove deadlier still can be averted by wise measures now.

That means taking the strongest possible economic steps to build up the neighbors who can hem China in, while stepping away from the abusive trade relationship that hollowed out America's factories while boosting China's.

Think of it as the new social distancing.

(COMMENT, BELOW)

Previously:
• 05/13/25: How this GOP Governor's Miracle Became a Curse
• 04/15/25: Is UnitedHealthcare CEO's murderer the Left's Donald Trump?
• 04/01/25: Lawfare Isn't Beaten -- In France or America
• 03/25/25: Will Trump Turn Nationalism Against America?
• 03/18/25: The Dems' Civil War
• 03/11/25: Can Donald Trump Win a Trade War?
• 03/04/25: Europe's Decline Was a Choice
• 02/25/25: How Trump Makes Europe Stronger
• 02/20/25: Tax-payers funding a sham of democracy
• 02/11/25: What Kind of a Populist Is Elon Musk?
• 02/03/25: Can Trump Win Trade Wars Before They Start?
• 01/21/25: Trump Inaugurates a New Era
• 01/14/25: Dems Aren't Democracy's Party
• 01/07/25: Donald Trump's Worldwide Election
• 12/31/24: Harmless self-deception?
• 12/17/24: Communism thriving, including HERE
• 12/10/24: Birthright Citizenship Is a Breach in the Border
• 12/03/24: Identity Politics, Not Biden, Cost Dems the Election
• 11/19/24: Why Dems Are Losing Tomorrow's Elections Today
• 11/12/24: Dems Are at a Dead End, Unless They Learn From Trump
• 10/29/24: Harris Targets Married Women
• 10/22/24: Vibes Turn Bad for Kamala Harris
• 10/15/24: Why Veterans Are Voting for Trump
• 10/08/24: How Donald Trump Can Win the Popular Vote
• 10/01/24: Iran Targets America's Elections -- and Trump
• 09/24/24: Trump's Would-Be Assassin's Explanation
• 09/17/24: When Character Assassination Becomes the Real Thing
• 09/10/24: Kamala Harris Runs Like a Republican -- and Misleads
• 09/04/24: Where Trump Is Moderate -- While Kam Is Maximalist
• 08/27/24: Donald Trump Is Reagan's Heir
• 08/20/24: Will Voters Settle for Joe Biden's Wing(wo)man?
• 08/13/24: Trump Has to Run Like It's 2016 Again
• 08/07/24: Is Trump Running Against Harris -- or Donald Trump?
• 07/30/24: Kamala Harris' 'Mean Girls' Election
• 07/23/24: Kamala Harris Is the Opponent Donald Trump Wants
• 07/16/24: Ready for Biden's Counterattack?
• 07/09/24: Biden Faces Richard Nixon's Choice
• 07/02/24: Should Biden Drop Out -- or Resign?
• 06/18/24: Separate Sexual Identity and State
• 06/18/24: Nigel Farage Makes the Trump Moment Permanent
• 06/04/24: State that's long eluded GOP turns toward Trump
• 05/21/24: Trump's Sun Belt Hopes and Rust Belt Needs
• 05/14/24: What Trump Sees in Doug Burgum
• 05/07/24: The Vietnam Era Never Ended for Biden's Party
• 05/06/24: Nationalists of the World, Unite?
• 04/25/24: Foreign Policy Splits
• 04/16/24: How pro-lifers stand to lose everything gained in overturning Roe
• 04/02/24: PBS Misremembers William F. Buckley Jr.
• 04/02/24: Who Wants to Be House Speaker?
• 03/26/24: Trump Hunts for a VP Close to Home
• 03/19/24: Princess Kate and Democracy's Discontents
• 03/12/24: Can Biden Buy the Voters?
• 03/05/24: Veepstakes Give Trump an Edge
• 02/20/24: Do Americans Trust Either Party?
• 02/13/24: Vladimir Putin -- A Passive Aggressor
• 01/23/24: Will 'Lawfare' Take Trump Off the Ballot?
• 01/16/24: Will Africa Save America?
• 01/09/24:'The Sopranos' at 25: A new world tragedy
• 01/02/24: Trump, Biden and a Fight for the Heart
• 12/12/23: What Happened to Ron DeSantis?
• 12/12/23: Biden Looks Doomed -- But Is He?
• 12/05/23: A Test for Trump and His Rivals
• 11/21/23: When Inequality Is Fatal for Men
• 11/14/23: Nevermind, The Battle's Over
• 11/07/23: War in the Dem Party -- and at the Opera
• 10/24/23: Israel's Lesson for 2024: A Lib Crackup
• 10/17/23: Libs' Dilemma: Immigration or Israel?
• 10/10/23: Why Bidenflation Defines Bidenomics
• 10/03/23: Will Gavin Newsom Copy Trump?
• 09/26/23: Biden's a Loser -- but Dems Can't Ditch Him
• 09/19/23: Do Sex Scandals Matter?
• 09/12/23: Cornel West Spells Doom for Biden
• 09/05/23: What Trump Does for Democracy
• 08/2/23: Ramaswamy: A Trump Versus Trump?
• 08/22/23: Take 'Rich Men North of Richmond' Seriously
• 08/16/23: How America Kills Its Own
• 08/08/23: The Biden Pardon That Can Spare America
• 08/01/23: Harding, a consevative for the ages
• 07/25/23: Demography Destiny, for Us and China
• 07/18/23: The Frontrunner Who Looks Like a Loser Is Biden
• 07/11/23: Britain's Bad Example for American Conservatives
• 07/05/23: Could We Still Win a Revolutionary War?
• 06/27/23: Civilizations Clash -- in Ukraine and at Home
• 06/20/23: China Comes for the Caribbean
• 06/13/23: Fertility, Family and Bio-Socialism
• 06/06/23: From American Dream to Orwell's Nightmare
• 05/23/23: Ukraine war is an existential struggle --- for the West
• 05/23/23: Learn the Right Midterm Lessons -- or Lose in 2024
• 05/16/23: Feinstein Today Is Biden Tomorrow
• 05/09/23: Trump, DeSantis and Political Courtship
• 05/02/23: RFK Jr.'s Threat to Biden
• 04/25/23: Biden's Lost Generation
• 04/25/23: Who's In Charge of Clarence Thomas?
• 04/11/23: Beyond AI, Our Cyborg Future
• 04/04/23: 2024: 3 Leaders, 1 Way to Win
• 03/28/23: Climate Science Makes a Bad Religion
• 03/21/23: All the Conspiracy That's Fit to Print