Analysis: Trump's virus playbook offers US vs world strategy

WASHINGTON (AP) — It’s a “foreign” virus, he says — one that can be fought by closing the nation's borders to dangerous foreigners carrying scary disease.

President Donald Trump has turned to a familiar playbook as he tries to grapple with the spiraling coronavirus outbreak, blaming immigrants for the country’s problems and casting the global health pandemic as another case of the U.S. against the world.

It's an approach that public health officials say ignores the new reality of a situation that is fueling panic and confusion and fundamentally altering the American way of life.

But it's business as usual for an isolationist president who once proposed barring Muslims from entering the country and has worked throughout his presidency to fortify the nation's borders and find novel ways to keep out those he deems unworthy, diseased or unsafe.

The pattern was especially jarring during Trump's rare Oval Office address to the nation Wednesday night. Instead of calling on Americans to lock arms with other nations to take on a common foe, Trump instead pointed the finger. He blamed Europe for fueling the virus' continued advancement — even as the U.S. has struggled to provide basic testing, local cases skyrocket and pockets of disease increase.

Trump credited his decision to restrict travel from China for keeping the U.S. case count low and then announced he would be extending his ban to some of America's closest allies as he took the unprecedented step of sharply restricting travel from much of Europe to the U.S.

“The European Union failed to take the same precautions and restrict travel from China and other hot spots," Trump said. “As a result, a large number of new clusters in the United States were seeded by travelers from Europe.”

To be sure,...