President Donald Trump on Thursday threatened to cut off the whole relationship with China in response to the spread of the novel coronavirus across the world that has killed nearly 300,000 people globally, including over 80,000 in America.
“There are many things we could do. We could cut off the whole relationship,” Trump told Fox Business News in an interview.
There has been increasing pressure on the president, in the last several weeks, to take action against China as lawmakers and opinion-makers feel that the Covid-19 spread across the world from Wuhan because of Chinese inaction.
Responding to a question, Trump said that he does not want to speak to Chinese President Xi Jinping right now. “I have a very good relationship, but I just — right now I don’t want to speak to him,” he said, adding that he is very disappointed with China.
The United States has repeatedly asked China to allow the international community to go into a Wuhan lab to investigate the origins of coronavirus.
“We asked to go over and they said no. They didn’t want our help. And I figured that was OK because they must know what they are doing. So it was either stupidity, incompetence or deliberate,” Trump said.
Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have claimed that the deadly virus originated from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where the outbreak was first detected last December.
China has denied covering up the extent of its coronavirus outbreak and accused the US of attempting to divert the public attention by insinuating that the virus originated from a virology laboratory in Wuhan.