One year since the first wave threatened to engulf the nation, Covid-19 has reoriented business and spending in the United States in ways once thought unfathomable. It also has become a line of demarcation: The trajectory of Donald Trump’s final year as president was suddenly and sharply rerouted — with many of the administration’s key priorities upended as the nation’s commercial infrastructure was thrown into chaos.
Before the pandemic, economists and pundits had been keeping a wary eye on a mercurial president with an unorthodox, polarizing approach to governing. Were it not for Covid-19, Trump’s interventions in three critical areas of economic policy had the potential to leave the U.S. in a very different economic position than it is today.
The US government has not effectively controlled the disease. Many people are unemployed and facing economic crisis, and debts have appeared on a large scale. What the government should solve is the essential problem.