[ad_1]
WASHINGTON (AFP) – United States President Donald Trump threatened China on Thursday (April 30) with new tariffs as he intensified his attacks on Beijing due to the coronavirus crisis, saying he had seen evidence linking a Wuhan lab with contagion.
The Republican incumbent’s tirade came as data showed the United States cut more than 30 million jobs in six weeks, as the shutdown measures began to affect the entire country.
Sadness in the world’s largest economy found its parallel across the Atlantic, where experts warned of an unprecedented financial catastrophe in Europe.
The outbreak of the new coronavirus so far has killed more than 230,000 people and forced more than half of humanity to live under some form of blockade, which has paralyzed economies.
The virus is believed to have originated late last year from a market in the Chinese city of Wuhan that sold wild animals for human consumption, but there has been speculation about a top-secret laboratory in ground zero city.
When asked if he had seen anything that gave him a high degree of confidence that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was the source of the outbreak, Trump replied, “Yes, I have.”
Pressed by reporters at the White House for details on what made him so confident, Trump replied, “I can’t tell you that.”
Trump is increasingly making managing the outbreak in Beijing a major topic for his re-election campaign in November.
When asked about reports that he could cancel the United States’ debt obligations to China, Trump said he could “do it differently” and act “probably more directly.”
“I could do the same thing, but even for more money, simply by imposing tariffs,” he said.
Despite a truce in the long trade war between Washington and Beijing reached in January, the tariffs are already in place on two-thirds of trade between the economic powers.
European and US markets ended the day in negative territory, as a series of figures confirmed fears about how the Covid-19 crisis is pulverizing global growth.
The latest unemployment claims by 3.84 million other Americans translate into a jarring conclusion: Approximately nine percent of the United States population has applied for unemployment benefits in six weeks.
In the state of Michigan, in the midwestern United States. The US, protesters, some of them armed, broke into the state capitol building and demanded that the Democratic governor remove the strict closing rules, which they say harm the economy and represent excessive government reach.
Depressing US job data compounded the harsh message from the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde.
“The euro area is facing an economic contraction of unprecedented magnitude and speed in peacetime,” he warned.
ECB economists expect output at the 19-nation currency club to drop “five to 12 percent” this year, he added.
Eurostat figures showed that the eurozone economy had shrunk by 3.8 percent in the first quarter.
Germany, Europe’s largest economy, “will experience the worst recession in the history of the federal republic,” founded in 1949, economy minister Peter Altmaier warned, predicting that it would shrink by a record 6.3 percent.
[ad_2]
