President Trump ripped Chinese officials who he believes are responsible for failing to react quickly enough to the coronavirus.
Trump accused China of “incompetence” over its failure to alert the global community of the threat posed by COVID-19 in a Wednesday morning tweet.
“Some wacko in China just released a statement blaming everybody other than China for the Virus which has now killed hundreds of thousands of people,” he said. “Please explain to this dope that it was the ‘incompetence of China’, and nothing else, that did this mass Worldwide killing!”
Some wacko in China just released a statement blaming everybody other than China for the Virus which has now killed hundreds of thousands of people. Please explain to this dope that it was the “incompetence of China”, and nothing else, that did this mass Worldwide killing!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 20, 2020
China and the United States have been engaged in a war of words as Chinese Communist Party officials attempt to deflect blame for the infectious disease outbreak that has ravaged global economies and killed more than 300,000 people worldwide.
While Trump failed to identify which official he was referring to, his tweet came a day after Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters Tuesday that the U.S. was trying to shift the blame for the pandemic to China. He made a similar claim on March 26, accusing the U.S. military of bringing the deadly pathogen to China and U.S. officials of trying to smear China in an attempt to hide its own failures on the virus.
Already rising tensions between China and the U.S. have boiled over in recent months as the origin of the virus remains unknown. Some Republican members of Congress have refused to accept that the disease was naturally spread in a Wuhan wet market, instead pointing out that China’s only biosafety level 4 superlaboratory is located just miles from the market.
In recent days, Chinese President Xi Jinping vowed to give $2 billion in funds to the World Health Organization to help with the fight against the virus.
