Joe Biden will now require travelers from China to show a negative coronavirus test to enter the United States after claiming in 2020 former President Donald Trump’s coronavirus response was “fanning the flames” of “hate, fear and xenophobia” against Asian Americans during the pandemic.
Beginning January 5, travelers from China by air will have to provide a negative Covid-19 test to enter the nation “within two days of their departure from airports in mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau,” Politico reported.
In January 2020, the Trump administration placed travel restrictions on passages arriving from China, where many experts believe coronavirus originated.
Biden called many of those restrictions racist in May 2020, claiming they were “denials, delays and distractions, many of which were nakedly xenophobic.”
“The pandemic has unleashed familiar forces of hate, fear and xenophobia that he always flames … that have always existed in this society,” Biden said.
“But this president brought it with him, has brought with it a new rash of racial messages, verbal and physical attacks and other acts of hate, some subtle, some overt, against the Asian American and Pacific Islanders.”
Biden also doubled down two months later by claiming Trump is a racist, not just his coronavirus policies.
“We’ve had racists, and they’ve existed, they’ve tried to get elected president. He’s the first one that has,” he claimed:
Biden says Trump is America’s first racist president: “We’ve had racists, and they’ve existed, they’ve tried to get elected president. He’s the first one that has.” pic.twitter.com/BbOG3GgXvq
— The Recount (@therecount) July 22, 2020
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.
