Trump has limited power over an economic shudder gone viral
Dr. Anthony Fauci, left, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, with Vice President Mike Pence at President Donald Trump's news conference Friday. Credit: Bloomberg / Andrew Harrer
There always are limits to what an American president can do to quell a crisis like this one, which has blossomed eight months before an election.
Until very recently, President Donald Trump billed himself as the creator of a strong U.S. economy. He hailed a soaring stock market as proof.
Last week, as stocks crashed worldwide, the hashtag #TrumpSlump started to spread. That might prove unfair because presidents can influence, but cannot dictate, market activity.
Nor did any elected official create coronavirus, which cratered manufacturing in China before setting off the global sell-off.
Events made Trump's past stock puffery silly in hindsight. To be fair, however, many financial analysts saw the markets as overpriced for years.
Trump delivered a widely watched national address in midweek. It caused confusion because it was chock full of misleading remarks on the whos, wheres and hows of the U.S. travel ban on Europe and whether it would affect cargo.
These sad errors were walked back, though — and it is tough to say if a better message could have staved off the post-speech plunge on Wall Street on Thursday, the market's worst day since 1987.
The Federal Reserve, which Trump habitually complains about, announced it was making $1.5 trillion in short-term loans available and purchasing Treasury securities.
That promised help, but the United States cannot financially self-quarantine. On Friday, markets began to pick up after central banks in Norway, Japan, and Australia cut interest rates, bought government bonds and took other steps. Then Trump declared a national emergency, he let his experts talk and a market rally finished off the week.
By Sunday, the Fed reduced interest rates, which should further help banking.
Since coronavirus already is getting around the United States — its extent still to be measured — state and local officials all over America take center stage.
The federal government finally is showing an effort to get citizens tested for coronavirus, for which there was an alarming lag.
Mayors, governors, supervisors, hospitals, schools and county executives became the relevant players.
Trump earlier likened this pandemic to another flu outbreak. He's blurted out blithe claims of falling numbers of cases, tests being available and vaccines just around the corner, giving fodder to critics.
Congress almost always is gridlocked along partisan lines, a condition that worsened after Trump's inauguration three years ago.
Even nowadays, though, bills sometimes pass. And on Friday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced a deal with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on paid leave for workers, expanded food aid and support for widespread testing for the illness at no cost to patients.
Former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), competing for the Democratic nomination to oppose Trump in November, are, of course, slamming Trump's performance as incompetent.
Trump's predictable efforts to blame the administration of former President Barack Obama for this or that may help morale among his flock and inflame his opponents.
All that becomes an irrelevant sideshow now.
Options to control the fallout narrow as the virus spreads, slowly or quickly, and the economy stalls due to quarantines.
As Trump often says: We'll see what happens.
Dan Janison is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
