Trump claims China 'chose not to stop' spread of coronavirus across the world

US President Donald Trump said on July 20 that China chose to let the coronavirus spread across the world when they could have easily stopped it. Speaking to reporters at the Oval Office, Trump said that the virus should have never been allowed to get out of China, adding that Beijing stopped it from entering China but didn’t stop it from spreading to the rest of the world.

“It came from China. It should have never been allowed to get out. They could have stopped it.  They could have stopped it easily. They chose not to.  And we’ll have further reports on that,” Trump said.

The coronavirus cases in the United States has spiralled out in the past few months and the country is witnessing an unprecedented rise in daily cases. According to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, the US has reported over 3.8 million cases of coronavirus and more than 140,000 deaths so far, the highest numbers worldwide. 

Trump has been trying to outsource the blame to China for his administration’s failure in containing the virus as he faces a tough re-election campaign. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin told a regular press briefing that the US won’t get out of trouble by shifting the blame to China.

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Warning in September

A former Trump administration economist recently claimed to have alerted the White House about the dangers of a possible pandemic way back in September 2019, three months before the first case of coronavirus was reported in China. Speaking to an American news channel, Tomas Philipson said that he co-authored and published a Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) report that warned about the impact of a looming pandemic.

Philipson said that the council was extremely successful, during his first nine months of tenure as CEA chairman, in getting President Donald Trump to take the advice. The ex-Trump administration economist revealed that there were times when he walked out of the Oval Office when his team was not on the winning side, leading to his exclusion and threats of firing him.

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