Trump blames China for coronavirus pandemic: ‘The world is paying a very big price for what they did’

President Donald Trump emphatically blamed China for the coronavirus pandemic Thursday, and again made a point of using the term “Chinese virus.”

“The world is paying a very big price for that they did,” Trump said, referring to his claim that Chinese officials did not fully share information sooner about the coronavirus outbreak after it began in China.

“It could have been stopped right where it came from, China,” Trump said at a White House news conference.

He argued that American officials would have been able to act faster if China’s government had fully shared information about the outbreak, which began around the city of Wuhan.

“It would have been much better if we had known about this a number of months earlier,” the president said.

Two months ago, Trump praised China’s response to the coronavirus, saying that country “has been working very hard” to contain the virus, and writing in a tweet that, “the United states greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency.”

But in recent days, Trump has repeatedly called the coronavirus the “Chinese virus,” and did so again at the beginning of his news conference.

A Washington Post photographer later Thursday tweeted photos of the sheet of paper containing remarks that Trump read from at the beginning of the event.

Those photos show that someone with handwriting similar to Trump’s had crossed out the word “Corona,” and wrote the word “Chinese” above it. The word “Virus” appeared right after that word.

Trump’s habit of saying “Chinese virus” has drawn strong criticism from Chinese officials and from a number of U.S. politicians, including former Vice President Joe Biden, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Article source: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/19/coronavirus-outbreak-trump-blames-china-for-virus-again.html