Eric Schmidt, the former Google CEO, has said that the United States would be harmed by a breakdown of relations and trade with China due to the coronavirus, and stated that in these times it is necessary to work as a team to overcome the pandemic.
During an interview with CNBC on May 14, Schmidt took the opportunity to respond to President Trump’s statements, who has repeatedly expressed his discontent with China – more so recently.
According to Schmidt, even as China’s propaganda campaigns against the US are running rampant, the US should not criticize China and instead work alongside China.
Schmidt said the actions of the President could be harmful for the nation, ensuring that there would be no way to recover from the possible long-term consequences.
“You would think that when we had one common enemy around the world – this virus that’s killing millions of people around the world – we would unite,” Schmidt said.
“Instead, we’ve decoupled. The cost of the decoupling is quite high.”
“Tensions are not good,” he said.
“All of these countries have huge militaries. They have all sorts of ways where they play to their domestic politics and can do negative things.
“I think it’s really important to understand that as you decouple from China – and they’re perfectly capable of building their own chips, their own software – they’re not coming back and that hurts us.”
