HONG KONG (March 12): Both US President Donald Trump and China’s Xi Jinping have good reasons to deflect political blame for the coronavirus outbreak. And that has both of them zeroing in on the pathogen’s name.

As the disease formally designated as Covid-19 expands across the US, Trump and other top Republicans have sought to highlight the outbreak’s foreign origin and even use it to justify curbs on immigration — including a wall on the southern border with Mexico. On Tuesday, Trump retweeted supporter Charlie Kirk calling it the “China virus” — with the president agreeing “we need the Wall more than ever!”