Header Ads

Trump seeks a reset

June 19, 2020
Balance of Power
Bloomberg

Donald Trump is ready to push the message that America is back.

Tomorrow in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the U.S. president will seek to reinvigorate his re-election campaign with one of his signature fire-em-up political rallies.

Thousands of cheering supporters would be the perfect tonic to what's been a tough week for the president, with former National Security Advisor John Bolton's tell-all memoir and stinging losses in the Supreme Court. Then there's the ongoing coronavirus outbreak and nationwide protests against police brutality against Black Americans. 

But, as Mario Parker explains, the event will also heighten scrutiny of Trump's handling of both the pandemic and racial inequity in America.

Oklahoma health officials worry a crowd of as many as 100,000 people could fuel the spread of Covid-19 and have recommended a delay. Campaign officials say they will offer masks and conduct temperature checks.

And while Trump did postpone it by a day after originally scheduling it for Juneteenth, a commemoration of the end of slavery, the choice of Tulsa has struck many rights campaigners as insensitive. It's the site of one of the worst incidents of racial violence in American history: the 1921 sacking by a White mob of a prosperous Black neighborhood named Greenwood.

With opinion polls showing Democratic rival Joe Biden in front, Trump is itching to get back to the political hustings and bask in the enthusiasm of his core supporters.

The question is whether this is the right time and the right place to do so.

— Karl Maier

Trump supporters outside BOK Center, site of his first political rally since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, on June 18.

Photographer: Win McNamee/Getty Images North America

Click here for Bloomberg's most compelling political images from the past week and tell us how we're doing or what we're missing at balancepower@bloomberg.net.

Global Headlines

Tough guys | Trump and Biden once bragged how well they knew Chinese President Xi Jinping. But with the election just four months away, they're jousting over who can be tougher on Beijing. Nick Wadhams and Tyler Pager report that each camp is airing ads that tap into the bipartisan fury in the U.S. at China's early missteps in alerting the world to the coronavirus outbreak.

Out of step | Boris Johnson has always been prone to gaffes and controversy, but central to his gift as one of Britain's most successful politicians was to read the public mood. But as Thomas Penny reports, there's growing disquiet within the ruling Conservatives over whether the man who scored such an emphatic election victory six months ago is still in sync with the nation after a series of fumbles over anti-racism protests and the country's colonial past.

Trial looms | Chinese authorities have indicted two Canadians on spying allegations, pressing ahead with a case diplomatically entwined with U.S. efforts to extradite a top Huawei Technologies executive from Canada. The charges against Michael Kovrig, a Hong Kong-based International Crisis Group analyst and a former Canadian diplomat, and Michael Spavor, who organized trips to North Korea, suggest they'll soon face trial after 18 months of detention.

In the spotlight | Serbia's president is poised to lead his party to an election victory Sunday with the biggest popular mandate since his former boss Slobodan Milosevic waged war in Kosovo 21 years ago. Aleksandar Vucic, who served as the late strongman's information minister, has pulled off a political reinvention that's made him the key broker in a volatile region where the U.S., the European Union, Russia and China are locked in a struggle for influence.

Vucic at a political rally. "Some people don't like me because of my past, some people hate me because of some irrational reasons, some people hate me because of rational reasons," Vucic said in a 2018 interview with Bloomberg. 

Photographer: Andrej Isakovic/AFP

India's isolation | If Prime Minister Narendra Modi thought he could count on the support of neighbors as he faced his most significant foreign policy challenge as leader, he was mistaken. Amid a spike in tensions with China following the first fatalities along their contested border in 45 years, a surging epidemic and an economy heading for recession, Modi is standing alone and facing rising domestic anger that's led to calls for a boycott of Chinese goods.

  • China's military released 10 Indian soldiers captured on Monday during a clash that saw 20 Indian troops killed and an unknown number of Chinese casualties.

What to Watch 

  • European leaders have opened negotiations over a proposed $840 billion program to help their economies rebound from the Covid-19 lockdown, with Germany and France pushing for a deal to be wrapped up next month.
  • Facebook removed ads and posts shared by Trump's campaign for violating the company's policy against "organized hate."
  • A police investigation closed in on Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro's family with the arrest of a former aide to one of his sons, further fueling political tensions in Latin America's largest economy.

Pop quiz, readers (no cheating!). What imported food have Chinese officials blamed for a resurgence of Covid-19 in Beijing? Send your answers to balancepower@bloomberg.net.

And finally ... Tanzanian President John Magufuli has successfully dealt with corrupt officials and foreign mining companies with the sheer force of his personality. Covid-19 may be proving less amenable. As Antony Sguazzin reports, while he claims God is on his side and declares victory over the virus, there are reports of deaths and nighttime burials by health officials wearing personal protective equipment, and the U.S. embassy last month called the risk of infection in Dar es Salaam "extremely high."

Church members wait for worshippers to scan their temperature during a Palm Sunday mass in Dar es Salaam.

Photographer: Ericky Boniphace/AFP

 

Post a Comment

No comments

Subscribe to: Post Comments ( Atom )