I’m in charge, says Trump as he ignites row over lockdown

US PRESIDENT Donald Trump has claimed “total” authority to decide how and when to reopen the US economy after weeks of social distancing.

Governors from both parties have been quick to push back, noting they have primary responsibility for ensuring public safety in their states and would decide when it is safe to begin a return to normal operations.

His comments came as the worldwide number of confirmed cases closed in on two million.

In the United States, Mr Trump would not offer specifics about the source of his asserted power, which he claimed, despite constitutional limitations, was absolute.

Mr Trump said at a White House briefing: “When somebody is president of the United States, the authority is total. The governors know that.”

He has been discussing with senior aides how to roll back federal social distancing recommendations that expire at the end of the month.

While Mr Trump has issued national recommendations advising people to stay at home, it has been governors and local leaders who have instituted mandatory restrictions, including closing schools and non-essential businesses. Some of those orders carry fines or other penalties, and in some jurisdictions extend into the early summer.

Governors made clear they would not tolerate pressure to act before they deem it safe.

New York governor Andrew Cuomo said: “We don’t have a king. We have a president,” and added that if the president ordered him to reopen New York’s economy prematurely, he would not do it.

New Hampshire Republican governor Chris Sununu told cable news channel CNN: “All of these executive orders are state executive orders and so therefore it would be up to the state and the governor to undo a lot of that.

Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, said: “The government doesn’t get opened up via

Twitter.

“It gets opened up at the state level.” Meanwhile, governors were banding together, with New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Rhode Island agreeing to co-ordinate their actions.

The governors of California, Oregon and Washington announced a similar pact.

While each state is building its own plan, the three West Coast states have agreed to a framework saying they will work together, put their residents’ health first and let science guide their decisions.

New Jersey governor Phil Murphy, a Democrat, stressed the efforts would take time.

Mr Murphy told a conference call with reporters: “The house is still on fire.

“We still have to put the fire out, but we do have to begin putting in the pieces of the puzzle that we know we’re going to need... to make sure this doesn’t reignite.”

Mr Trump, however, insisted it was his decision to make.

“The president of the United States calls the shots,” he said, promising to release a paper outlining his legal argument.

Mr Trump can use his “bully pulpit” to pressure states to act or threaten them with consequences, but the US constitution gives public health and safety responsibilities primarily to state and local officials.

Though Mr

Trump abandoned his goal of beginning to roll back social distancing guidelines by

Easter, he has been itching to reboot an economy that has dramatically contracted as businesses have closed, leaving millions of people out of work and struggling to obtain basic commodities.

The closure has also undermined Mr Trump’s re-election message, which hinged on a booming economy. Mr Trump’s claim that he could force governors to reopen their states also represents a dramatic shift in tone.

For weeks Mr Trump has argued that states, not the federal government, should lead the response to the crisis. And he has refused to publicly pressure states to enact stay-at-home restrictions, citing his belief in local control of government.

The row came as New York’s coronavirus death toll topped 10,000. The brunt of the disease worldwide has been felt most heavily in New York, Italy, France, Spain and the UK, but grim projections of a virus that would spread with equal ferocity to other corners of America and the world have not yet materialised. An online dashboard that tracks the global number of confirmed coronavirus cases, maintained by Johns Hopkins University, initially showed the number of cases passing 2,000,000 in the early hours of yesterday but the site was later adjusted to show 1.9 million cases worldwide, with the reasons for the change not immediately clear. Many parts of the world have had heavy restrictions on freedom of movement to combat Covid-19, and officials around the world are worried that halting quarantine and social-distancing measures could easily undo the hard-earned progress.

However, there were signs countries were looking in that direction.

Spain permitted some workers to return to their jobs, while a hard-hit region of Italy loosened its lockdown restrictions.

In the US, about half of the more than 22,000 deaths reported are in the New York metropolitan area.

Meanwhile, Johns Hopkins’ tracking maps showed a dense patchwork of coronavirus cases along the Northeast corridor of the US, as well as significant outbreaks corresponding to other major metropolitan areas – though nothing on the scale of what New York has endured.

Dr Sebastian Johnston, a professor of respiratory medicine at Imperial College London, said it appeared covid-19 had peaked in much of Europe.

But he was worried the virus might now start to take off in countries across Latin America, Africa and Southeast Asia.

South Korea yesterday reported its 13th day in a row with fewer than