Illustration: Chen Xia/GT

Facing a multitude of intensifying crises, the current US government isn't looking for solutions to dissolve its difficulties, choosing instead to escalate economic and political tensions with China, as if all the problems embroiling America could be fixed by playing the "China-Bashing" card. The paranoid is getting thicker. 

During the just-concluded Republican Party national convention, Donald Trump was once again nominated to seek reelection. In his acceptance speech, he didn't have much to say about his measures to contain the ongoing COVID-19 health crisis - he doesn't have any - or any plans to help the American working classes and the poor, or efforts to lessen discrimination and reduce racism against Americans of color. Trump instead commented that he will continue to pull American companies and investments out of China - the world's expanding giant market.

Increasingly, it looks like the Trump administration, which launched its infamous trade war against China in 2018 and 2019, is bent on accelerating the divide across the Pacific Ocean by "decoupling" from China.

It's very sad, or rather pathetic, for the administration not to focus its attention and marshal America's resources on tackling the coronavirus in the country, which has now infected nearly 6 million people and taken the lives of more than 180,000 Americans. 

In addition, racial conflicts continue to rage across the US, with the outrageous cases of white policemen strangling a black man to death, and randomly shooting another black man in his car, having triggered waves of the "Black Lives Matter" movement. 

We often metaphor a crisis is like a fire engulfing an apartment building. It calls for the fireman to first move the endangered residents from their homes, then to hose water to douse the smoke and extinguish the flame. 

In the face of such "fire" crises - the coronavirus onslaught, racism-induced riots and a trade dispute with China - the Trump administration's approach has not been to "pour water",  but rather to "add fuel", creating an inferno big enough to swallow up the whole of America. 

Former US President Bill Clinton hit the nail on the head a few days ago, remarking that the White House should have been a center of leadership, not a "center of storm and chaos". 

Following the brutal death of George Floyd, it made no sense whatsoever to further provoke a racial war in the country by incessantly tweeting about "law and order" while not distancing from one's precious stance condoning white supremacy. 

With disputes around US commerce ties to China, the EU, or Japan, it made no sense to pre-emptively launch a trade war, rather than taking a calm and reasonable approach and engaging the trade partners on the table, negotiating a compromise agreement which would suit both parties. It is this tit-for-tat trade war that has extensively poisoned China-US relations. 

And therein comes the biggest crisis facing the US, the COVID-19 pandemic, which has now battered the country for five months, with no end in sight. It made no sense for the Trump administration to first ascertain it as "a hoax" and not prepare for its onslaught with scant supply of PPE and test kits, then further fuel up the crisis by ordering American states to reopen their economies prematurely, causing a voracious "second wave". 

To possibly make matters even worse, winter season is approaching in the northern hemisphere. In recent winter seasons the US was hit by sweeping influenzas. The prevalence of the coronavirus, if coupled with winter flu, could lead to a massive and unprecedented public health challenge for the country.

From the very start, Trump has been talking about a quick bounce back and a "V" shaped economic recovery, declaring that "America's economy will be roaring back to life like nobody has ever seen before". 

It hasn't bounced back yet. The Trump administration's woeful handling of the crises has translated into the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The world's largest economy is in shambles, plunging 10.6 percent during the first six months of 2020 and shedding 23 million jobs. 

Additionally, the Federal Reserve's unprecedented loosening policy is not to the rescue the economy, which is in a de-facto free fall, but rather to gradually eat away at the global reserve status of the US dollar, and boil up the Wall Street stock prices and enrich the already affluent upper-class Americans. Meanwhile, rising inflation will further erode the livelihood of poor Americans. 

The chasm of economic inequality in the US doesn't provide firm foundations for a stable society - rather, the country is sitting on an active volcano. 

The author is an editor with the Global Times.bizopinion@globaltimes.com.cn