[roywiggins]

In an ordinary US government, that's true.

But in the current one, who gets on Fox seems to be a more reliable indicator of the thinking of the ruling clique than official pronouncements. Stuff that gets repeated on Fox enough tends to end up coming out of the President's mouth eventually. Official pronouncements from Secretaries of Suchandsuch get countermanded by tweet. One of the President's closest advisors broadcasts on Fox nightly.

"Blame China" is a simple message and it would not be rational to think it is not going to be tweet-official policy soon enough.