President Donald Trump says the U.S. is investigating how China has dealt with the coronavirus outbreak and would look at pursuing “substantial” damages from Beijing.
During a press conference at the White House Rose Garden on Monday, Trump again leveled accusations at China’s handling of the pandemic.
Trump and some members of his administration have suggested China should be punished for its response, amid claims of covering up the outbreak and a lack of transparency over the number of deaths and infections.
Trump revisited the theme on Monday, telling reporters there were “a lot of ways you can hold them accountable,” that the U.S. was conducting “serious investigations,” and that “we are not happy with China.”
www.newsweek.com/china-donald-trump-xi-jinping-coronavirus-1500591?piano_t=1
Chinese military is monitoring a U.S. warship, which entered Chinese territorial waters off the Xisha Islands in the South China Sea without permission, and has warned it to leave, a spokesman said on Tuesday.
On Tuesday, a U.S. warship entered the territorial waters off the Xisha Islands in the South China Sea without China’s permission. The Southern Theater Command of the People’s Liberation Army deployed air and navy forces to monitor and verify the ship, and warned it to leave, according to Senior Colonel Li Huamin, a spokesperson of the command.
Trump angers China by warning US may seek damages over virus
US President Donald Trump suggested he may seek damages from China over the coronavirus pandemic which began in the Chinese city of Wuhan and spread around the world, prompting a furious response from Beijing on Tuesday.
Beijing and Washington have clashed repeatedly over the outbreak as tensions have soared between the world’s two biggest economic powers.
“We are not happy with China,” Trump said at a White House briefing Monday. “We are not happy with that whole situation because we believe it could have been stopped at the source.
“It could have been stopped quickly and it wouldn’t have spread all over the world,” he said, saying there were many options to “hold them accountable”.
Trump was asked about a recent German newspaper editorial which called on China to pay Germany $165 billion in reparations because of economic damage due to the virus.
Asked if the US would consider doing the same, Trump said “we can do something much easier than that.”
“Germany is looking at things, we are looking at things,” he said. “We haven’t determined the final amount yet,” Trump said.
In Beijing, a foreign ministry spokesman on Tuesday accused US politicians of “telling barefaced lies”, without naming Trump specifically, and of ignoring their “own serious problems”.
AC