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The president made the statement during a press conference at the White House on Thursday night, but provided no source for the accusation.
– What happened is terrible. If it was an accident or if it started by accident and if they continued with more, or if someone did something intentionally, Trump said.
The president was asked if it would be appropriate not to lend US loans to China for punishing China for allowing the coronavirus to spread throughout the world and into the United States. Later, Trump also replied that he would instead consider imposing tariff restrictions on the country.
“I could do it, but make more money simply by introducing customs duties,” Trump said.
Attacking China
Trump’s outreach on Thursday joins more and more attacks blaming China for the virus outbreak. On Thursday, it cost another 2,000 American lives, with a total of 63,000 dead and more than 1 million infected.
The presidential attacks are not seen in the context of the November presidential election and Trump’s popularity in recent weeks.
Early Thursday, United States intelligence concluded that the coronavirus was neither man-made nor genetically modified. The conclusion was made public after President Trump and other members of his administration made such indications.
– Accident or animal
The chief intelligence officer of the United States, Richard Grenell, who coordinates the operations of the country’s 16 different intelligence agencies, said they are still working to determine if the outbreak started after contact with infected animals or was the result of a accident in a laboratory in Wuhan.
President Donald Trump and others have suggested that the virus may be artificial and come from a laboratory in Wuhan. The Wuhan Institute of Virology is subject to the Chinese Academy of Sciences and has conducted cutting-edge research, including on the SARS virus and other viruses that can be transmitted from animals to humans.
Chinese authorities have rejected claims that the coronavirus originated in this laboratory as “unsubstantiated and manufactured.”
