Trump appears to ignore guest talking about saving small businesses to tweet threat to China

President appeared to ignore a small business owner’s coronavirus account during meeting

Donald Trump appeared to ignore a small business owner during a meeting at the White House as she discussed how she dealt with the coronavirus outbreak as he fired off a tweet threatening China.

The president had gathered some GOP governors and business industry executives to talk about reopening the economy after and amid the coronavirus outbreak. As one business owner told her tale, Mr Trump was pictured looking at a smartphone.

The familiar light of a phone screen lit his face and suit jacket as the woman spoke.

It was not long before a tweet appeared from Mr Trump’s personal account.

“It was not Ambassador Lighthizer’s fault [yesterday in Committee] in that perhaps I didn’t make myself clear, but the US certainly does maintain a policy option, under various conditions, of a complete decoupling from China. Thank you!” the president appeared to have written from the meeting, referring to the US trade representative, Robert Lighthizer.

Pool reporters in the room at the executive mansion quickly took to Twitter with pictures of the president on his phone during an official meeting about the economy and a pandemic that has staggered the economy for months and killed more than 117,000 people in the United States.

The president was referring to a comment Mr Lighthizer made during Wednesday testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee.

“Do I think that you can sit down and decouple the United States economy from the Chinese economy now?” Mr Lighthizer asked rhetorically. “That was a policy option years ago, but I don’t think it’s a policy or reasonable policy option at this point. I think you will see supply chains come back as a result of US policy.”

The day’s designated pooler for all print outlets sent out a report that Mr Trump tucked his phone back into his jacket at 3:56 pm. The tweet carried the same timestamp.