The longer Trump is president, the funnier it is to ask his critics for the one strongest example of something he did wrong on the job. Example answer: "Well, his mean tweets, and, um, you know the thing."
Balancing the risk to the economy and the risk to health is his job. I wouldn't call it "downplaying" when he shut travel from China against all expert opinion.
Which experts told Trump not to shut down travel from China? And you said "against all expert opinion". That would be quite a lot of experts saying no to a travel ban. I would like to know who they were.
Second point, Trump did not ban all flights from China. 40,000 arrived.
A partial travel ban is pretty much worthless. Italy banned ALL flights between countries.
The fact we have 143K deaths is proof the "ban" was not very effective:
I think the protocol would be:
1) Quarantine for 14 days for Americans wanting to come back
2) Only have people who test negative be allowed on a aircraft coming back to the US.
3) Quarantine on return
Have a managed plan to get them back to the US. Similar to your surgery prep.
Taiwan was one of those geniuses.
Lesson: if someone or country gets something right, might be useful to learn what they did right. That was one of the 1st things I asked months ago: who's getting it right?