Photo: Global Times

US President Donald Trump once again displayed his bigotry as well as his utter contempt for science by scapegoating China, referring to COVID-19 as the "China Plague" in a tweet on Tuesday.

Trump's rant shows his penchant to blame others for his own mistakes. Demonizing and stigmatizing China will only further distance the two countries and two peoples.

The novel coronavirus, like AIDS, MERS, SARS or any other infectious virus, was neither man-made nor genetically modified. 

Clueless before a dangerous pathogen, the Trump administration has racked up its China-bashing, and has lately engaged in efforts to assault Chinese businesses, harass Chinese nationals and interfere in China's diplomatic missions in the US. As China-bashing is immensely popular among Trump's supporters, the sitting president is pinning his re-election hopes on an anti-China narrative. 

Due to the ineptitude of the Trump administration, more than 5 million Americans have now been infected by COVID-19, with more than 165,000 losing their lives. While there are many factors at play, key to the high numbers is the administration's mishandling of the public health crisis. 

In recent months, the world has heard the US president assert that the virus is a "sham" and that it would "miraculously disappear in summer." Watching its wild spread across the US, the president stated, "I don't take responsibility at all," and recently responded "it is what it is" to reports of constantly growing American infections and fatalities.

The US, the most powerful country in the world with the most sophisticated medical technologies, did not have to lose so many lives to the coronavirus. The Trump government has squandered vital time and bungled in its response. 

The country should have learned from China and enforced a strict two-month national lockdown, tracing all close contacts and placing them under quarantine. 

If it had not been for the administration's relentless strikes against China - on trade, technology, business, reporters, scholars, students and diplomatic missions - the China-US relationship would not have deteriorated to such an unprecedented low. 

Trump's move to restart the US economy in early May was a selfish one, coming against a chorus of opposition from American medical experts and epidemiologists, such as Dr Anthony Fauci. The premature reopening allowed the virus to spread freely in US factories and office buildings, infecting millions of Americans. 

The Trump administration is expected to do little to deal with COVID-19 in the coming months, instead focusing on its re-election campaign. It is looking increasingly likely that more Americans will die before November 3, which is so tragic and traumatic to a superpower like America. 

The author is an editor with the Global Times. bizopinion@globaltimes.com.cn