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The President of the USA The US, Donald Trump, threatened China on Thursday with tariffs and claimed to have seen tests that allow him to state with a high degree of confidence that the new coronavirus originated in a laboratory in the Chinese city of Wuhan, something that Beijing denies.
The president made those statements at a press conference at the White House, in which a journalist asked him if he planned to cancel part of his debt obligations with Beijing to punish the Asian giant for its management of the pandemic, as published by this Thursday The Washington Post.
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“We can do it in other ways, we can do it with tariffs, we can do it in other ways even beyond that, without having to play that game”, responded the president without offering more details about the possibility of a punishment.
According to The Washington Post, which quotes four US Administration officials, a meeting of officials from various government agencies, including some from Intelligence, was scheduled to take place on Thursday to devise a strategy seeking retaliation against China.
At the press conference, Trump again blamed the Chinese government for the virus and, in an escalation of tone, pointed out that Beijing may have stopped it, but he chose to let it spread throughout the world.
They could have stopped it, they (China) are a very brilliant nation, scientifically and in other ways. He ran away, let’s say that, and they could have stopped him, but they didn’t
“They could have stopped him, they (China) are a very brilliant nation, scientifically and in other ways. He ran away, let’s say that, and they could have kept him, they could have stopped him, but they didn’t,” he said.
In addition, he said he has tests that allow him to ensure that the source of SARS-CoV-2 is a laboratory in Wuhan City, where the first cases were detected.
Specifically, a journalist asked him if he had evidence that would allow him to affirm with a high degree of confidence that the new coronavirus originated in said laboratory, to which Trump replied: “Yes, I do, and I believe that the World Organization for Health (WHO) should be ashamed. “
The president considered that the WHO has acted as “a public relations agency” of China due to the praises it gave about the Chinese government’s handling of the virus. For this reason, already in mid-April, Trump announced that he was freezing payments to the WHO for 60 to 90 days.
The WHO has noted that, to date, the source of the new coronavirus is unknown. Aside from Trump’s hints, some Chinese authorities have promoted the theory that American soldiers introduced the disease while participating in the Wuhan World Military Games in October.
Precisely this Thursday the US National Intelligence. USA He ruled out that the coronavirus is an artificial creation. The office of the director of that federal agency, Richard Grenell, highlighted in a statement that “the Intelligence community agrees with the broad scientific consensus that the covid-19 virus is neither artificial nor genetically modified.”
In 2018, Beijing and Washington embarked on a trade war that led to the mutual imposition of tariffs, although in December 2019 they reached a principle of agreement, which allowed both countries to enjoy a few months of apparent cordiality, but Trump this Thursday He stated that this pact is something “secondary” compared to the coronavirus.
According to data from the Johns Hopkins University in the United States, more than one million infections are already registered and more than 62,000 deaths, which places the country as the main focus of the pandemic in the world.
EFE
