"So who is important and who not?"

Victor Davis Hanson writes in part in American Greatness,

...In geostrategic terms, we do not endure an absolute but rather a relative epidemic. Like it or not, national rivalries continue at a time of plague. Our three greatest rivals, China, Russia, and Iran are all faring far worse than are we in ways that transcend the virus.

China’s brand is tarnished, despite its cheap and loud effort to Silkroad its way out of the disaster. Sending medical supplies to Italy does not balance out earlier sending hundreds of Chinese citizens with the virus to Italy, at a time the communist government knew the disease was transmissible, and well established among the Chinese population. It kept such knowledge from the world in general, and from its clients like Italy in particular.

Nations, if wise, will question Chinese reliability, transparency, and truthfulness as never before—despite likely Chinese discounts and outreach to maintain relationships. Many will still conclude that the upside of cheap labor cancels out the downside of dependency on such an unreliable and odious government partner.

In American terms, Trump’s supposedly quixotic effort to decouple key industries from China will no longer be the stuff of bemused scorn, but the new orthodoxy, with obvious advantages for the United States in terms of autonomy and autarky of life-sustaining goods—not to mention U.S. jobs.

Iran was in extremis before the virus—oil price crashes, oil sales boycotted and embargoed, unpopularity over killing 1,500 protestors and lying about shooting down a passenger airliner. Now its “China First” policy of relying on Beijing for help in avoiding U.S. sanctions boomeranged in catastrophic fashion: their atheistic and Islamic-persecuting Chinese patrons knowingly sent infectious people into Iran, with the full knowledge of the risk to their supposed client.

Russia’s Middle East agendas were already stagnating, given that Syria is an expensive hellhole that great powers are now wise to avoid, at least on the ground. Crashed oil prices robbed Moscow of revenue. Its military buildup, Middle East imperialism, and anti-American efforts are running short of cash. They will continue to do so as both Saudi Arabia and the United States pump more oil.

Go here to read what he has to say about the media, the global elites, and who is important and who not.