More Countries Impose U.K. Travel Restrictions. Why Is The U.S. Not One Of Them?|Opinion
By: Klaudia Naqvi
Tags: Politics, Coronavirus Update, Covid-19, Coronavirus, Foreign Policy

The World Health Organization and the nation’s top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony S. Fauci caution against panic and advocate monitoring of the situation with flights continuing to come in from London to New York. Just as during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in March, when the importance of wearing masks was downplayed by the White House and Dr. Fauci, the United States continues to suffer from a weak government response and its inconsistent messages. But what exactly propels the reluctance of the United States to follow the direction of other countries, that have fared much better during the pandemic? The reasons lie as much in history as they do in the overall handling of the COVID-19 issue in the United States and the United Kingdom.

Dating back to 1946, Winston Churchill first mentioned the ‘special relationship’ of the U.S. and the U.K. in his ‘Iron Curtain’ speech, which coined a unity, based on the shared values, language, and history. This ‘special relationship’ sets these two world powers apart from other countries and facilitates the idea of a superior alliance, one that drives a fundamental inclination towards brotherly cooperation at all cost. From early on, Prime Minister Boris Johnson and President Donald Trump agreed to a coordinated response to the coronavirus outbreak, even if that means taking the wrong actions or taking the right actions too late. Going against each other’s interests has never been a characteristic of the US-UK relationship and it is not about to start now, in a crisis that has engulfed the globe, killing 1.7M people worldwide and 320,000 people in the United States as of this week.

While Trump trumpeted the suspension of flights as his most decisive and anticipatory action in the early days of the virus’ emergence, successive US actions reek of disregard and poor coordination, a symptom of weak federal leadership and political discord between various states and the folks in Washington DC. Creating conflict at all cost has become a defining feature at Capitol Hill, the cross-party alliances decimated by a win-at-any-cost mindset at the top. If people die in the middle of the partisan battle, so be it.

At the heart of everything also lies the distrust of analytics, data and science, a failed and mindless perspective that sits at the heart of Trump’s seat-of-the-pants leadership style. Failed “entrepreneurial instincts” sit equally at the heart of cabinet decision-making, where every issue is seen to be solved with dramatic gesturing, pure gut-feel or plain-old inertia, as opposed to timely actions driven by scientific inquiry and fact base.

That failed set of behaviors sit now nearly in our past, but the repercussions will haunt the families of many in this country, both the ordinary members of our extraordinary 244-year-old brotherhood, as well as its better off members. That’s the real Trump legacy and one to remember, as the death toll mounts and the economic and social repercussions will haunt us in the years to come.