Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-NY, says she’s not surprised that the Canadian border is expected to remain closed for at least another month, pointing to President Donald Trump’s perceived handling of the COVID-19 crisis in recent months.
Gillibrand, speaking to WAMC’s Pat Bradley in Saranac Lake, criticized Trump’s strategy to defeat the virus, saying he’s been slow to adopt policies that could contain the disease.
“It's not surprising that other governments are looking at President Trump's refusal to take COVID seriously, refusal to insist on masks and social distancing, refusal to create a pipeline for production of PPE and testing, and vaccinations,” Gillibrand said.
“So I'm not surprised that he's alienated the entire world's community, including one of our closest and best neighbors and friends: Canada.”
Canada is expected to extend the closure of its border with the U.S. for another month, until late August, according to news reports.
That comes as the number of coronavirus cases continues to climb in the U.S. Nearly 61,000 new cases were reported nationwide Tuesday. That’s almost double the number of daily cases reported in the U.S. in early April, when the virus was surging in New York.
In contrast, New York reported 831 new cases of the disease Tuesday. That’s a fraction of what the state was reporting at its peak, when more than 10,000 cases were diagnosed each day.
But while New York is trending better than the rest of the country, Gillibrand acknowledged that there’s still a long way to go until the state fully recovers, and that Congress could act to expedite that process.
Congress is expected to start negotiating a new aid package next week, according to news reports, which could include immediate relief for low-income earners in the form of stimulus checks.
It’s unclear what else will make it into the bill, particularly when it comes to direct aid for state and local governments. Gillibrand said, given that New York is projecting a revenue gap of more than $13 billion, direct aid for the state will be one of her top priorities.
“All the budgets for every city, every community and the state overall have been crushed because of the lack of an economy,” she said. “The fact that we have been closed to most economic activities really devastated the ability to pay salaries for first responders and other state workers.”
Congress is expected to break for a four-week recess after the first week of July, meaning a stimulus package will either be approved in the next month or have to wait until September at the earliest.