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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump on Tuesday urged China to be transparent about what it knows about the origin of the coronavirus that emerged from Wuhan, China and has wreaked havoc around the world.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told ABC “This Week” on Sunday that there was “a significant amount of evidence” that the new coronavirus emerged from a Chinese laboratory, but did not question the conclusion by US intelligence agencies that it was not made by the man.
The Wuhan Institute of Virology, backed by the Chinese state, has dismissed the allegations, and other US officials have downplayed their likelihood. Most experts believe that the virus originated from a wildlife retail market in Wuhan and jumped from animals to people.
Trump, speaking to journalists outside the White House before leaving on a trip to Arizona, said the United States will release its report detailing the origins of the new coronavirus over time, but gave no other details or timeline.
“We will report very definitively over a period of time,” said the Republican president.
Trump, who initially praised China for his response to the outbreak but later harshly blamed Beijing for the virus, also said he had not spoken to Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“We want them to be transparent. We want to find out what happened so that it never happens again,” he said.
(Report by Steve Holland and Tim Ahmann; written by Susan Heavey, Edited by Franklin Paul and Jonathan Oatis)
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