Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Tuesday slammed President Trump’s conversation about an out of control coronavirus “send” in New Zealand as “patent wrong.” She expressed outrage after Mr Trump exaggerated the new outbreak of viruses in New Zealand as an “enormous uproar” that Americans would do well to prevent.
“Anyone who follows,” Ardern said, “will see quite easily that nine cases from New Zealand in one day do not compare to the tens of thousands of the United States.”
“Obviously the patent is wrong,” she added to Mr. Trump’s remarks, in unusually blunt criticism from an American ally.
It was after New Zealand became famous as a worldwide success story local removal of the virus and Ardern was praised as the “anti-Trump.”
But the recent discovery of a cluster in Auckland forced the country’s largest city back into lockdown.
In color election rally in Minnesota on Monday, Mr Trump jumped over that development as proof that his critics – who set New Zealand as an example – were wrong.
“You see what’s going on in New Zealand,” Mr Trump told supporters. “They hit it; they hit it. It was like front page (news), they hit it because they want to see me something.”
Against a “big deal in New Zealand,” Mr Trump added: “It’s terrible. We do not want that.”
New Zealand, with a population of five million, has confirmed about 1,300 cases of coronavirus since the pandemic began about eight months ago, and now has about 70 active cases.
The US, on the other hand, is the hardest hit nation in the world with well over five million cases and more than 170,000 deaths.
It’s not the first time Mr Trump and Ardern – a relatively young, center-left leader – have clashed.
Shortly after her stunning election victory in 2017, Mr. Trump met her at a summit in Vietnam and joked that she had “caused a lot of uprising in her country.”
“You know, no one marched when I was elected,” she replied, referring to the protests that followed Mr Trump’s victory in 2016.
Both leaders will go to the polls in the coming weeks, and for both, business leaders are likely to play well with supporters.
Ardern is forced to postpone the elections by one month because of the recent outbreak, she is putting her big lead in the interviews in jeopardy.
Mr. Trump traps Democrat Joe Biden in the polls and expresses fierce criticism over his handling of the pandemic.
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