Joe Biden condemns President Trump for his response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the context of the EU’s travel ban.
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Joe Biden, presumptive presidential nominee, condemned Trump’s mismanagement of the country’s pandemic response in a new statement on the European Union’s travel ban.
“How many times must Americans pay the cost for Donald Trump’s failures? Because Trump can’t do the most basic parts of his job, the United States is now viewed as posing a global health risk,” the statement reads.
What happened?
On Wednesday the EU opened its borders again to nonessential travelers coming from a select list of countries where the COVID-19 pandemic has been deemed under control; the US is not on that list. The US State Department continues to advise Americans not to travel outside the country.
The EU’s travel ban, what the New York Times called a “high-profile rebuke” of the Trump administration, opened its borders to 15 countries, including China. The ban takes into consideration the traveller’s country of residence and not their nationality.
“Families that have been separated for months will be kept apart even longer. Commercial opportunities for hard-hit American business will be stunted. And the rift that Trump has created with our closest allies will only widen,” Biden’s statement reads.
In his statement, Biden lambasts Trump for the havoc wreaked on the nation by COVID-19. The US is leading the world in the number of coronavirus cases and deaths, with more than 2.5 million Americans infected and over 125,000 deaths. CNN reports that the US houses 4% of the world’s population but 25% of global COVID-19 cases.
On Wednesday, the US reported nearly 50,000 new cases of COVID-19, the fifth single-day case record in eight days. Roughly half of all new cases are from four states: Florida, Texas, Arizona and California.
Biden’s statement concludes, “And now, a president who started his term by writing hateful travel bans is responsible for getting the American people banned from traveling. His presidency is an outrage from start to finish.”