Trump's obstinacy on COVID-19 origin could isolate U.S.

**Editors Note: **Stephen Ndegwa is a Nairobi-based communications consultant and international affairs columnist. The article reflects the author's views, and not necessarily those of CGTN.

Although U.S. President Donald Trump is not pulling any punches in his determination to fight China by all means necessary, unbeknownst to him, he is increasingly isolating himself from the community of right-thinking constituents.

Both America and the world at large have seen it all from Trump, starting with some of his unworkable election campaign promises in 2016 to his current smear campaign against China on account of the origin of the COVID-19.

The President's goofs have reached a crescendo that might be difficult to pull back from without causing irreparable damage to both his reputation and the face of the U.S. in the international community. Indeed, observers now see his insistence that COVID-19 escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan, China as the climax of his self-destruction.

After failing to galvanize his political allies and the American media against China on the pretext that the latter is solely to blame for the COVID-19 pandemic, Trump has resorted to manipulating the collective intelligence community to adopt the narrative.

Following Trump's claims, only one of America's top allies stood out in apparent support. On April 29, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison took a similar stance, saying that: "Now, it would seem entirely reasonable and sensible that the world would want to have an independent assessment of how this all occurred, so we can learn the lessons and prevent it from happening again."

The insinuation by the PM raised tensions between Canberra and Beijing, resulting in a diplomatic row. The Chinese media observed that this incident risked long term damage to the bilateral and trade ties between the two countries.

But Trump's unsubstantiated accusations seem to have come a cropper on Tuesday after reports that intelligence shared by the Five Eyes alliance – the U.S., Australia, United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand – indicated that it is "highly unlikely" that COVID-19 emanated from a laboratory in Wuhan.

"It is highly likely it was naturally occurring and that the human infection was from natural human and animal interaction", said a Western diplomatic official with knowledge of the intelligence, as reported by CNN.

This is a position that the U.S. media also fully supported.

His distorted view of intelligence – and its misuse in the search for predetermined outcomes – makes Trump an unreliable leader.

U.S. President Donald Trump pictured in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, the U.S., May 6, 2020. /AP

The U.S. has been accused of meddling in the internal affairs of other countries for decades, both covertly and overtly. Overt operations, like the U.S.-led coalition against Iraq, have been undertaken in the guise of neutralizing threats to global instability. After all the damage in Iraq, the coalition found nothing in the way of weapons of mass destruction.

Covertly, the U.S. has been accused of using agents to infiltrate the inner sanctums of countries, with the aim of engineering regime changes that align with its geopolitical interests. Lately, Trump's apparent meddling in the affairs of Venezuela has gained global notoriety.

Trump's actions are reminiscent of the Cold War, which was the open but controlled enmity between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, and their allies, following the Second World War. The Cold War was waged mainly through political and economic propaganda.

Occasionally, the tension reached scary levels which kept the world on tenterhooks as both superpowers were bearers of nuclear weapons. This is the kind of tension that was almost witnessed towards the end of last year during the altercation between Trump and Kim Jong-un over the nuclear weapons stalemate.

In a desperate effort to create an anti-China coalition on account of his stand on the origins of the virus, Trump's self-righteousness could lead the world down a dangerous path. America also has friends in a Sino-envious coalition of like-minded countries who see the COVID-19 crisis as an ideal opportunity to cut China down to size. This means inciting hate through propaganda and using scare-mongering tactics.

China's allies will definitely not stand on the sidelines for long and let China fight such aggression alone.

The end game of this unfolding Trump-generated scenario is that developing countries will take one side of any emerging rifts between America and China. In the last couple of decades, developing countries, particularly those in Africa, have learned tough lessons on partnerships based on mutual benefit.

Ever since China sounded the alarm on the discovery of the virus in Wuhan at the end of December 2019, it has been transparent in revealing its attempts in fighting against it, both in-country and overseas. The world is now waiting to see what other demands or allegations Trump will make towards China concerning COVID-19.

Ultimately, if this is a tit-for-tat game, then Trump may consider the following Tweet by Lin Jing, China's Consul General in Cape Town: "The 1918 flu pandemic starting from the United States, AIDS was first reported in the United States, 2008 financial turmoil triggered by Wall Street, has the United States been held accountable and repay the trillions of US dollars lost globally?"

(Cover image: U.S. President Donald Trump speaks before signing a trade agreement with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He, in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, the U.S., January 15, 2020. /AP)

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