The Globe and Mail - 27.03.2020

FRIDAY,MARCH27,2020| THEGLOBEANDMAILO NEWS | A

The United States has decided
against sending U.S. troops to its
border with Canada after the Can-
adian government said it “strong-
ly opposed” the proposal de-
signed to fight the COVID-19 pan-
demic.
The Wall Street Journal report-
ed Thursday evening that the
Trump administration spiked the
plan because of Canada’s objec-
tions.
Deputy Prime Minister Chrys-
tia Freeland stressed earlier in the
day that Canadian officials made
their opposition to the idea “very,
very clear to our American coun-
terparts.”
“In terms of what we are doing
about it, we are very directly and
very forcefully expressing ... that
in Canada’s view, this is an entire-
ly unnecessary step which we
would view as damaging to our re-
lationship,” Ms. Freeland said dur-
ing Thursday’s ministerial brief-
ing on the novel coronavirus,
which causes the respiratory ill-
ness COVID-19.
A senior Canadian official with
knowledge of the plan said it
would have stationed 1,
troops about 30 kilometres from
the border with ground-based
sensor technology to track unau-
thorized crossings. This informa-
tion would be relayed to border
guards to intercept people.
Ms. Freeland said Canadian
officials learned of the proposal a

few days ago.

Although the plan was aimed

at preventing irregular crossers

travelling from Canada into the

United States, far more people

cross from the U.S. into Canada.

Last week, Ottawa announced

Canada and the United States had

agreed to turn back anyone trying

to cross the border on either side.

Clamping down on asylum

seekers making irregular border

crossings has been a big part of

U.S. President Donald Trump’s

agenda. Such efforts have usually

been targeted at Mexico.

At a White House news confer-

ence on Thursday afternoon, Mr.

Trump said the troops could also

be used to stop illegal shipments

of Chinese steel coming in

through Canada to avoid his

tariffs on China.

“We have a lot of things coming

in from Canada. We have trade,

some illegal trade, that we don’t

like. ... We don’t like steel coming

through our border that’s been

dumped in Canada so they can

avoid the tariff,” the President

said. “We’ve taken in billions and

billions of dollars in tariffs on steel

and much of it comes in from Chi-

na, but they can come in through

the Canadian border, too, so we’re

always watching for that.”

Mr. Trump also suggested that

putting troops closer to Canada

would help even things out with

Mexico.

“We have very strong deploy-

ments on the southern border, as

you know, Mexico, and we had

some troops up in Canada, but I’ll

find out about that. I guess it’s

equal justice, to some extent,” Mr.

Trump said. “But in Canada, we

have, we do have troops along the

border.”

It was not immediately clear

what Mr. Trump was talking

about. The plan did not appear

intended to help border guards

search for illicit shipments of

heavy metals. It was also unclear

what troop deployment on the

Canadian border the President

meant.

The Canadian official said the

U.S. troop idea originated with the

Department of Homeland Securi-

ty, which includes Customs and

Border Protection, and had re-

ceived some support at the White

House and the Pentagon. But oth-

ers in the White House, Pentagon

and Homeland Security opposed

the plan, the official said. The

Globe and Mail is not identifying

the official because they were not

authorized to speak on the mat-

ter.

In a statement distributed by

Homeland Security and attribut-

ed to an unnamed “senior admin-

istration official,” the Trump ad-

ministration said it was “consid-

ering every option to ... minimize

health threats entering the coun-

try.” The official warned that, de-

spite instructions to practice so-

cial distancing, the “risk of further

spread of the virus is too high” not

to take further steps.

The Nation magazine on

Thursday afternoon published

what it said was a leaked memo

from Homeland Security to the

Pentagon outlining the request.

The memo asked for up to 1,

Department of Defense “person-

nel” to deploy to the border with

Canada and 540 for the border

with Mexico. The troops would re-

main in place until Sept. 30, the

memo says.

“Any unknown or unresolved

illegal entries into the United

States in between ports of entry

have the potential to spread infec-

tious disease,” reads the memo,

sent March 19 from Juliana Black-

well, Homeland Security’s execu-

tive secretary, to her counterpart

at the Pentagon, Captain Oliver

Lewis. The memo specifies that

“military personnel will not con-

duct civilian law enforcement ac-

tivities” and will play a “support

role” to border guards.

Former U.S. ambassador to

Canada Bruce Heyman said the

proposal is “entirely political”

and not supported by any ratio-

nale.

“Just proposing this is highly

dangerous. It’s dangerous in that

you’re putting in Americans’

minds that there is an issue at the

U.S.-Canada border, and it’s put-

ting a relationship that is so im-

portant ... in some jeopardy,” Mr.

Heyman said.

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Scientists warned that the United
States some day would become
the country hardest hit by the
coronavirus pandemic. That mo-
ment arrived Thursday.
In the U.S., at least 81,321 peo-
ple are known to have been in-
fected with the coronavirus, in-
cluding more than 1,000 deaths –
more cases than China, Italy or
any other country has seen, ac-
cording to data gathered by The
New York Times.
With 330 million residents, the
United States is the world’s third-
most populous country, meaning
it provides a vast pool of people
who can potentially get CO-
VID-19, the disease caused by the
virus.
And it is a sprawling, cacoph-
onous democracy, where states
set their own policies and Presi-
dent Donald Trump has sent
mixed messages about the scale
of the danger and how to fight it,
ensuring there was no coherent,
unified response to a grave pub-
lic-health threat.
Although the American med-
ical system is unsurpassed, and
its public-health system has a
reputation as one of the finest in
the world, a series of missteps
and lost opportunities dogged
the country’s response.
Among them: a failure to take
the pandemic seriously even as it
engulfed China; a deeply flawed
effort to provide broad testing for
the virus that left the country
blind to the extent of the crisis;
and a dire shortage of masks and
protective gear, to protect doc-
tors and nurses on the front
lines, as well as ventilators to
keep the critically ill alive.
China’s leaders, stung by the
SARS epidemic in 2003 and sev-
eral bird flu scares since then,
had a deeply flawed early re-
sponse to the outbreak, which
began in the city of Wuhan, with
local officials suppressing news
of the outbreak.
But China’s autocraticgovern-
ment acted with ferocious inten-
sity after the belated start. Singa-
pore, Taiwan, South Korea and
Japan quickly began preparing
for the worst.
The United States instead re-
mained preoccupied with busi-
ness as usual: impeachment.
Harvey Weinstein, Brexit and the
Oscars.
Only a few virologists recog-
nized the threat for what it was.
The virus was not influenza, but
it had the hallmarks of the Span-
ish flu: relatively low lethality,
but relentlessly transmissible.
Cellphone videos leaking out
of China showed what was hap-
pening as it spread in Wuhan:

dead bodies on hospital floors,

doctors crying in frustration,

rows of unattended coffins out-

side the crematories.

What the cameras missed – in

part because Beijing made West-

ern journalists’ lives difficult by

withholding visas and imposing

quarantines – was the slow, re-

lentless way China’s public-

health system was hunting down

the virus case by case, cluster by

cluster, city by city.

For now, at least, China is con-

taining the coronavirus with dra-

conian measures. But the patho-

gen had embarked on a grand

tour of most countries on Earth,

with devastating epidemics in

Iran, Italy and France. More vid-

eos emerged of prostrate victims,

exhausted nurses and lines of

coffins.

The United States, which

should have been ready, was not.

There was no Pentagon ready

to fight the war on this pandem-

ic, no wartime draft law. There

was eventually a White House

coronavirus task force, but it has

been led by politicians, not med-

ical experts.

The Centers for Disease Con-

trol and Prevention is one of the

great disease-detective agencies

in the world, and its doctors have

contributed mightily in skir-

mishes against Ebola, Zika and

any number of other health

threats.

But the agency retreated into

silence, and its director, Robert

Redfield, was almost invisible –

humbled by a fiasco in the failure

to produce basic diagnostic test-

ing.

Now, at least 160 million

Americans have been ordered to

stay home in states from Califor-

nia to New York. Schools are

closed, often along with bars, res-

taurants and many other busi-

nesses. Hospitals are coping with

soaring numbers of patients in

New York, even as supplies of es-

sential protective gear and

equipment dwindle.

Other hospitals, and other

communities, fear what may be

coming.

The world will be a different

place when the pandemic is over.

India may surpass the United

States as the country with the

most deaths.

Similar to the United States, it,

too, is a vast democracy with

deep internal divisions. But its

population, 1.3 billion, is far

larger and its people are crowded

even more tightly into megaci-

ties.

China could still stumble into

a new round of contagion as its

economy restarts and be forced

to do it all again.

In the meantime, with the vi-

rus loose in the streets, while

millions of Americans huddle in-

doors, when will it be safe to

come out and go back to work?

“The virus will tell us,” said

William Schaffner, a preventive

medicine specialist at Vanderbilt

University Medical School.

When a baseline of daily test-

ing is established across the

country, a drop in the percentage

of positive tests will signal that

the virus has found as many

hosts as it can for the moment,

and is beginning to recede.

When hospital admissions

have hit a clear peak and begun

to plateau, “we can feel optimis-

tic,” Dr. Schaffner said. “And

when they begin to drop, we can

begin to smile.”

That moment may arrive this

summer. But as soon as the first

of Americans begin venturing

cautiously out, we will have to

start planning for the second

wave.

NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE

U.S.nowleadsworldinCOVID-19cases

AstaffmemberofNewYork’sBrooklynHospitalCentercallsinpatients

atacoronavirustestingsiteonThursday.Casesaresoaringinthecity,

whileprotectivegearisdwindling.MARYALTAFFER/ASSOCIATEDPRESS

DONALDG.MCNEILJR.

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she expected the

chamber to pass an estimated US$2.2-trillion coronavirus

relief bill when it meets on Friday, after the Senate over-

whelmingly approved the unprecedented economic rescue

legislation Wednesday evening.

“Tomorrow we’ll bring the bill to the floor. It will pass

with strong bipartisan support,” Ms. Pelosi, a Democrat, told

reporters.

The legislation will rush direct payments to Americans

within three weeks once the Democratic-controlled House

of Representatives passes it and Republican President Do-

nald Trump signs it into law, Treasury Secretary Steven

Mnuchin said.

The Republican-led Senate approved the bill – which

would be the largest fiscal stimulus measure ever passed by

U.S. Congress – by 96 votes to zero late Wednesday, after

days of intense negotiations between Democratic and Re-

publican lawmakers, and Trump

administration officials.

The unanimous Senate vote, a

rare departure from bitter parti-

sanship in Washington, under-

scored how seriously members

of Congress are taking the global

pandemic as Americans suffer

and the medical system reels.

The unanimous support also in-

creased the bill’s chances of eas-

ily winning approval in the

House.

The package is intended to

flood the country with cash in an

effort to stem the crushing impact on the economy of an

intensifying pandemic that has killed more than 1,000 peo-

ple in the United States and infected nearly 70,000.

The U.S. Labor Department reported on Thursday that

the number of Americans filing claims for unemployment

benefits surged to 3.28 million, the highest level ever.

Ms. Pelosi said there was no question more money would

be needed to fight the coronavirus. She said House commit-

tees would be working on the next phase in the near term,

even if the full chamber is not in session.

House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy also backs the

relief plan passed by the Senate. But he wants it to be al-

lowed to work before deciding whether more legislation

was needed. “This will be probably the largest bill anybody

in Congress has ever voted for,” he told reporters.

The World Health Organization has warned that the Unit-

ed States looks set to become the global pandemic’s ep-

icentre.

Mr. Trump has promised to sign the bill as soon as it

passes the House.

Ms. Pelosi said House leaders were planning a voice vote

on the rescue plan on Friday, but would be prepared for

other contingencies.

There was some opposition. Republican Representative

Thomas Massie said he opposes the bill, and was uncom-

fortable with the idea of allowing it to pass on a voice vote,

rather than recording every House member’s position on it.

“I’m having a real hard time with this,” Mr. Massie said on

55KRC talk radio in Cincinnati.

The US$2.2-trillion bill includes a US$500-billion fund to

help hard-hit industries and a comparable amount for di-

rect payments of up to US$3,000 apiece to millions of fam-

ilies.

The legislation will also provide US$350-billion for small-

business loans, US$250-billion for expanded unemploy-

ment aid and at least US$100-billion for hospitals and relat-

ed health systems.

REUTERS

Pelosisayssheexpects

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WASHINGTON

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Senateapprovedthe

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lateWednesday.