US President Donald Trump has continued to make false claims while speaking about the coronavirus pandemic. After hydroxychloroquine and others, his claims on deficit trade with China, misleading facts about travel restrictions to China and misquoting Joe Biden's statement to make his point clear have been found during his virtual town hall event.
In the virtual event conducted by Fox News on Sunday night, Trump took questions from people and 'answered' their queries. During the virtual session, Trump took credit for himself and said, "I did the China ban, I closed down the country for China."
Travel restrictions fact
But in reality, Trump did not ban everyone from China entering the US. In fact, the travel restrictions came in the end of January when the international flights to China had already shut operations. Moreover, according to Trump's travel restrictions, those foreign nationals who were in China from 14 days prior to announcing the restrictions were not allowed inside the US and not everyone was banned from entering the country.
Another claim made in this regard was that he had saved thousands and thousands of lives by his decision of 'China ban.' But the current numbers, where US has the most death rate and coronavirus cases in the world doesn't support his claim at all.
Did the US face deficit trade?
Trump also had claimed that the US has not benefitted from China at all, instead the trade had led to a deficit of $500 billion per year. But according to FactChek.org, the US had tariffs on China for more than two centuries that had generated an average of $12 billion a year from 2007 to 2016 and there was no deficit trade.
Biden misquoted?
Trump said that Biden had released a letter of apology with regards to Trump's decisions on travel restrictions to China. "Biden has now written a letter of apology because I did the right thing," Trump had said.
Trump quoted Biden and said that the Democratic nominee for President had said that Trump has a record of "hysterical xenophobia" and "fear-mongering" speaking about Trump's decision on travel restrictions to China.
But this was clearly misquoted. Though it was true that Biden had said Trump had hysterical xenophobia, he told it in his campaign in mid-January, much before Trump announced travel restrictions to China. The claim that Biden had apologized was also wrong as Biden has not written a letter to Trump.
Dragging Obama into controversy?
Trump also dragged Barack Obama into the controversy and said that Obama and other previous governments did nothing to contain HIV/AIDS while telling that only he was doing everything possible to contain the disease.
The President kicked off a slew of false claims aimed at a familiar target: the Obama administration. Trump accused the previous administration of doing "nothing" to address AIDS.
Trump's claim stated: "We will be AIDS-free within 8 years. We started, 10 years. Should've started in the previous administration. They did nothing. It started at my administration."
However, the fact is that the Obama-led government had allocated more than $5.5 billion per year to check HIV/AIDS, stated a CNN report. This was the only money allocated in three primary domestic programs. More money was allocated on international anti-HIV/AIDS initiatives by the Obama government along with the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare that helped people with HIV with health insurance coverage.
