Politico: “Terry Branstad, the outgoing U.S. ambassador to China, said in a new interview that President Donald Trump mistakenly ‘believed the Chinese’ in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. The remarks from the Trump appointee and former longtime Iowa governor represent an apparent break with the White House amid a heated general election campaign — which has seen Trump cast himself as tough on China’s ruling Communist Party while describing Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden as beholden to Beijing.”
“‘I think President Trump believed the Chinese when they said what they said about the virus,’ Branstad told CNN in an interview that aired Friday. ‘And then he and the rest of the world have found out that what they said was not true, and misinformation and cover-ups occurred… It’s really, I think, the communist system of China and their unwillingness to admit wrongdoing that caused this whole thing to happen,’ Branstad added. ‘And that’s the tragedy of it.’ China has emerged as a major flashpoint in the presidential race in recent months, with Trump taking an increasingly hard line against Beijing through a variety of punitive measures related to its initial handling of pandemic, exertion of greater authority in Hong Kong and internment of ethnic minorities.”