Foreign Affairs presents another another thoughtful, “it’s not too late” piece predicting that China will emerge from the COVID-19 crisis with increased global prestige and leadership at the expense of the United States. It suggests a number of steps that the Trump administration could take that would both stem this and have an immediate impact.
The same applies to the many pleas to Trump to execute the Defense Production Act, and accompanying head-scratching about why he has not.
All well and good. Except that the Trump administration does not have the capacity in ability or temperament to do any of this, not to mention the interest in it. Acting on the DPA, for example, would be an immense administrative task for an administration that has gutted itself of what little talent it had. Franklin Roosevelt initiated negotiations with industry in 1940 — it still took until 1943 for the most capable of all administrations to fully transform the American economy to a war footing. In this light, the reason for Trump’s avoidance is obvious: He knows that he is not up to the task, and won’t open the floodgates of failure.
Up until now, the media — which, contrary to his bleatings — has pretty much given Trump a free ride: Being critical of him for what he is not doing is a far cry from facing the reality that the President of the United States is simply not up to the job.