A Washington Post column has criticized the U.S. government for refusing to learn from South Korea’s handling of COVID-19 and rather mistreating the ally. 

Josh Rogin said in the column posted on Tuesday that U.S. President Donald Trump “has been jealously maligning” South Korea, which is showing the world that the pandemic can be contained, while downplaying its accomplishments and saying lies about the country. 

As an example, Rogin pointed to U.S. Health Secretary Alex Azar’s remarks last week that appeared to attribute South Korea’s success to “despotic Asian behavior.” The secretary was wrong, he said, and attributed the success to effective policies, including aggressive early testing, contact tracing and mask-wearing programs. 

The WP columnist said such behavior toward South Korea is “just one aspect” of the Trump administration’s mistreatment of U.S. allies, including South Korea, accusing Trump of “repeatedly” threatening to withdraw American troops from the Asian country and demanding a sharp increase in defense-sharing costs.