Column: Trump is pulling back U.S. forces and bombers overseas as Russia, China, Iran and other adversaries expand operations during the coronavirus crisis.
In the race to get masks, other medical equipment from China to combat the coronavirus, competitors outpaced the U.S., which lacked a coordinated plan., sinking a Vietnamese fishing boat and sending an oil survey ship into Malaysian waters.
Not surprisingly, Trump administration officials insist they’re not distracted, although the nation’s medical and economic catastrophes have understandably taken most of their attention. But only one country has an aircraft carrier operating in the western Pacific now, and it’s China. The two U.S. carriers in the region were confined to port after crew members were stricken with COVID-19: the Theodore Roosevelt in Guam and the Ronald Reagan in Japan.
But don’t take any comfort in that. America’s shambolic response to the crisis has put a huge dent in our global image as a competent cutting-edge nation. Normally the Group of 7 big industrial democracies would coordinate solutions to the pandemic and efforts to speed an economic recovery.The president has held two video meetings with his G-7 colleagues — but he’s been the odd man out, asking the others to join him in calling COVID-19 the “Wuhan virus” and saying he would halt U.S. funding for the World Health Organization. They declined.
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