NYT columnist pans Trump's China obsession

US President Donald Trump's China obsession is particularly bothering those who have to deal with the current US public health crisis, most of which is no longer due to the Asian connection at all, according to Gail Collins, an Op-Ed columnist for the New York Times.

Whenever Trump appears in public, you can be sure of the following: He will not wear a mask, and he will crow about having beaten back Chinese travelers, she added in her new column.

"We are getting great marks for the handling of the coronavirus pandemic, especially the very early BAN of people from China," the president tweeted last weekend.

If you listen to Governor Andrew Cuomo's daily address to New York, you may have noticed he talks about the "European virus", Collins said.

"When we first started with this virus we were told it was coming from China, right?" Cuomo said on Wednesday. But when it came to the East Coast, he added, "it turns out it came from Europe".

That was a detail the administration did not want to mention, given the fact that even Trump could hardly use this version of the story to make himself a hero, Collins said.

Politically, of course, there's nothing better than claiming your opponent is soft on - someplace foreign, according to Collins.

A recent Trump fund-raising letter was quoted in the column that "You'll never hear it from the Fake News media, but I am TOUGH ON CHINA and Sleepy Joe Biden is WEAK ON CHINA".

Collins said Cuomo's current statement - that the current problem in the US is all about the "European virus" - seems to be a wise approach. First, it reminds us that the pandemic is not going to disappear. Second, it's a call for global supervision. Third, it'll drive Trump crazy. What more do you need?