US President Donald Trump warned on Thursday that Washington could potentially suspend all ties with China as part of its reponse to Beijing's handling of the coronavirus outbreak
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 14th May, 2020) US President Donald Trump warned on Thursday that Washington could potentially suspend all ties with China as part of its reponse to Beijing's handling of the coronavirus outbreak.
"There are many things we could do," Trump said in an interview with Fox news when asked how the US would respond to China. "We could cut off the whole relationship."
Trump also claimed that cutting off relations with China would save the United States some $500 billion. The president was presumably referring to the US trade deficit with China, which stood at $419 billion in 2018.
During the interview, Trump said he has a good relationship with China's President Xi Jinping, but added that "right now I just don't want to speak to him."
He emphasized that he was "very disappointed" with China, saying they "could have stopped" the spread of the coronavirus.
Trump's latest comments on China come as his administration considers ways to punish Beijing over what US officials say was China's effort to withhold information about the coronavirus after it emerged the Chinese city of Wuhan.
Senior officials in the US administration, including Trump and State Secretary Mike Pompeo, have suggested without evidence that the coronavirus came from a state laboratory located in Wuhan. China strongly denies the allegations.
Last week, Trump said in a Fox News interview that he believed incompetence, and not malicious intent, was behind the COVID-19 outbreak in China. However, Trump has blamed the Chinese government for not informing the international community about the outbreak in time, resulting in the spreading of the virus around the world.
