[ad_1]
Beijing and Washington have repeatedly clashed over the outbreak as tensions have skyrocketed between the world’s two largest economic powers.
United States President Donald Trump speaks during the daily briefing on the new coronavirus, COVID-19, at the White House on March 19, 2020, in Washington, DC. Image: AFP
WASHINGTON – United States President Donald Trump suggested he could seek harm in China from the coronavirus pandemic that started in the Chinese city of Wuhan and spread across the world, prompting a furious response from Beijing on Tuesday.
Beijing and Washington have repeatedly clashed over the outbreak as tensions have skyrocketed between the world’s two largest economic powers.
“We are not happy with China,” Trump said at a White House briefing on Monday. “We are not happy with this whole situation because we believe it could have been stopped at the source.”
“It could have stopped quickly and it would not have spread worldwide,” he said, saying that there were many options to “hold them accountable.”
Trump was asked about a recent editorial in a German newspaper asking China to pay Germany $ 165 billion in reparations due to economic damage caused by the virus.
When asked if the United States would consider doing the same, Trump said, “We can do something much easier than that.”
“Germany is looking at things, we are looking at things,” he said. “We have not yet determined the final amount,” Trump said.
In Beijing, a Foreign Ministry spokesman on Tuesday accused US politicians of “telling blatant lies,” not specifically mentioning Trump, and ignoring his “serious problems.”
“American politicians have repeatedly ignored the truth and have been telling blatant lies,” Geng Shuang told reporters at a regular press conference.
“They have one goal: to shirk their responsibility for their own measures to prevent and control poor epidemics and to divert public attention.”
Geng said that American politicians should “reflect on their own problems and find ways to contain the outbreak as quickly as possible.”
TENSIONS AND DOUBTS
There have been nearly a million infections with more than 56,000 coronavirus-related deaths in the United States, and the pandemic has shut down large sectors of the economy.
In China, the outbreak appears to be under control and no new deaths were reported for 13 consecutive days and the death toll is 4,633, although several countries have questioned whether the figures are accurate.
Trump and his secretary of state Mike Pompeo angered Beijing last month by repeatedly referring to the “Chinese virus” when they discussed the COVID-19 outbreak, although they later seemed to drop the term.
But a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry in Beijing later suggested it was the US Army. USA The one that brought the virus to Wuhan, sparking angry claims by Trump that China was spreading misinformation.
Since then, the President of the United States has repeatedly attacked China’s lack of transparency and the slowness of his initial response to the outbreak.
The affirmations of the EE. USA That the virus actually originated from a virology institute in Wuhan with a highly secure biosecurity laboratory has also been angrily disproved in China.
[ad_2]
