Will Trump's 'America First' work in fighting COVID-19?

It's time not to repeat the misunderstanding of the Spanish flu, which truly originated in the U.S. but was reported most in Spain in the early 20th century.

Amid worldwide concerted efforts in fighting COVID-19, one unharmonious voice has sparked much criticism from internet users, experts and officials as U.S. President Donald Trump stigmatized labeling of the coronavirus on his Twitter feed.

Due to the president's tweets, American virus has been trending on the social media platform.

It's easy to understand the internet users' objection to the president's use, because it's recognized that there is still no evidence showing where the virus came from.

Facing the criticisms including racism and xenophobia, Trump still defends his words.

Though it seemed ridiculous, it's not unexpected to find Trump blaming China at a time when the coronavirus cases and the death cases went up quickly.

Claiming "America first" will be the major and overriding theme of his administration during his presidential campaign in 2016, Donald Trump, then 70, won an unexpected victory over veteran Hillary Clinton in 2016 through unconventional racist rhetoric to become the 45th president of the world's largest economy.

Since then as United States president, Trump has indeed tried to deliver on his promise in an astonishing way.

The year 2018 witnessed the U.S. run by Mr. Trump withdrawing from many international organizations including the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Paris Agreement, the Iran Deal and UNESCO. One of the reasons he gave is that being a participant in those organizations or treaties hurts America's interests.

Besides, the president also made headlines for the wall he promised and relentlessly pursued both in his campaign and during his current term.

In January 2019, the U.S. witnessed its longest ever government shutdown due to the president and the Democrats differing on a budget plan for the wall, which Trump said will protect American people from the threats of drugs and throngs of illegal immigrants from Latin America.

It's easy to see how Mr. Trump values his "America First" policy.

That can obviously explain Trump's decision to bar entry to foreigners traveling from the Chinese mainland at the end of January as his country confirmed its first COVID-19 patient on January 21.

Even European Union countries and the UK, traditional allies of the United States, were struck with travel restrictions on March 12 and March 16, as they suffered a rapid growth of confirmed cases.

These actions all sound somewhat reasonable and acceptable as far as his "America First" policy is concerned. However, one thing to highlight is why the president abruptly changed his naming of the global pandemic from coronavirus, COVID-19 to the one that brought him criticism as being racist.

In addition, Mr. Trump also abruptly changed his attitude to China from affirming China's endeavor in containing the coronavirus spread to blame China for the losses of American industries suffered due to the global pandemic.

Along with the changes, Wall Street experienced its most volatile week ever and the U.S. faced an increasingly serious pandemic situation.

There are lots of analyses pointing out that the president chose China as a scapegoat to free himself from taking responsibility for his incompetence in fighting the pandemic and stabilizing markets.

Given Trump's determination to win the 2020 presidential election, the scapegoating also was explained by many experts to avert the attention or anger from voters, or specifically voters suffering from COVID-19.

The president has his explanation for his scapegoating behavior. The first confirmed case of the global pandemic was in China. However, there has so far been no official or scientific statement showing that China is the place where the virus was born.

Instead, virologists from Japan and China's Taiwan region were reported to have suggested that the virus may have originated in the U.S.

Recently, there is a voice that the virus had its roots earlier in Italy than the outbreak occurring in China.

"They (general practitioners) remember having seen very strange pneumonia, very severe, particularly in old people in December and even November," Giuseppe Remuzzi, director of the Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research, was quoted by NPR as saying.

"This means that the virus was circulating, at least in [the northern region of] Lombardy and before we were aware of this outbreak occurring in China."

In consideration of what was going on in the U.S. in the past weeks, the president's "America First" policy may be better to say "America Bigwigs First."

The Atlantic reported on March 15 that it could only confirm that 26,905 tests have been conducted across the United States through an ongoing investigation. And in Oklahoma, the Utah Jazz consumed 20 percent of the state's entire stock of test kits.

Another example is that Senator Richard Burr dumped 1.7 million U.S. dollars stocks after assuring Americans that they were all well-protected to be free from the coronavirus.

So far, coronavirus cases have topped 300,000 worldwide and the U.S. has become one of the worst-hit countries as the number of cases in the country surged to 24,148.

That's really a challenge to "America First."

Hope America is not the place where the virus was born and ordinary Americans are not the first to abandon him.