Donald Trump suggests China 'intentionally' allowed coronavirus to spread across world

Ewan Somerville19 June 2020

Donald Trump has suggested that China may have intentionally allowed coronavirus to infect other nations.

The US president, a vocal critic of the country during the pandemic, was asked about the widely-held belief that Covid-19 originated in Wuhan, the Chinese city of 11 million people.

“There’s a chance it was intentional,” he said in an explosive interview with the Wall Street Journal, referring to how the virus spread across the world to 187 other countries.

“They’re [China] saying, man, we’re in a mess. The United States is killing us,” he added. “Don’t forget, my economy during the last year and a half was blowing them away. And the reason is the tariffs.”

Donald Trump wasn't aware that the UK was a nuclear power, it has been claimed
AFP via Getty Images

Appearing to soften his suggestion, he added: “I don’t think they would do that… But you never know. But it has had an impact.”

It comes as the president threatened to sever ties with China, despite Ambassador Robert Lighthizer, his top trade negotiator, insisting decoupling from Beijing was not a reasonable policy option for the US.

Mr Trump tweeted: “It was not Ambassador Lighthizer’s fault (yesterday in Committee) in that perhaps I didn’t make myself clear.

“The US certainly does maintain a policy option, under various conditions, of a complete decoupling from China. Thank you!”

His administration has also questioned the reliability of Beijing’s reporting of new coronavirus infections, which forced its 21 million residents to enter a second lockdown this week.

The president has angered critics with his frequent attacks on China, with phrases such as “the plague from China” having become a refrain in his press conferences.

He has forwarded the theory that the virus began in the Wuhan Institute of Virology lab, claiming he has seen evidence to give him a “high degree of confidence”, despite no evidence existing publicly to prove this.

Mr Trump is pressing ahead with an election rally in Oklahoma on Saturday, the largest social gathering in the US for three months, despite a further 684 deaths being recorded on Thursday.

Since March, the virus has sickened more than 2.1 million US residents, killed 118,434 and left millions unemployed.

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