If Trump Won't Lead the World, Others Must
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- The gravest emergency to confront the U.S. in decades has fallen on the watch of a uniquely unfit president. At a time when the world should be looking to the White House for wisdom and leadership, it finds only Donald Trump’s characteristic blend of incompetence and dishonesty. His musings last week about killing the virus by ingesting disinfectant were a gift to comedians, but as always with Trump, the joke is on us.
Fortunately, many mayors and governors (though not all) have been rising to the challenge, taking action, heeding science, communicating reliable information, and collaborating with one another. In Washington, the Federal Reserve delivered prompt and comprehensive interventions to support the financial system. Even Congress, for all its dysfunction, has acted faster than its record of partisan paralysis would have suggested.
One of the virtues of our federal system of government is that it has sufficient strength and depth to keep working even if the person at the top isn’t up to the job. But internationally, the picture is deeply troubling. America’s abdication of leadership during a crisis that demands international cooperation is far more difficult to remedy.
The coronavirus pandemic is a global emergency, which makes it both necessary and possible to align governments as allies in a war against the disease. But that has not happened. Resources — materials, information, research — should have been marshaled to avoid waste and duplication; they were not. Export controls on essential equipment should have been discussed and agreed to, where necessary; instead, countries imposed them unilaterally. The World Health Organization and other agencies should have been recognized as vital global assets, staffed and funded accordingly; President Trump, in an attempt to shift blame away from the White House, announced that he would withhold funding to the WHO.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-won-t-lead-world-093014411.html
