Coronavirus: Trump says China wants him to lose re-election

US President Donald Trump has said China “will do anything they can” to make him lose his re-election bid, stepping up his criticism of Beijing amid the coronavirus pandemic.

In a White House interview with Reuters news agency, he said Beijing faced a “lot” of possible consequences from the US for the outbreak.

He said China should have let the world know about the contagion much sooner.

A spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry has denied the allegations.

He told Reuters: “There are many things I can do. We’re looking for what happened.”

Mr Trump added: “China will do anything they can to have me lose this race.”

The Republican president said he believes Beijing wants his likely Democratic challenger Joe Biden to win in November’s election.

President Donald Trump on Thursday also said — without offering any evidence — that he has a high degree of confidence that the coronavirus outbreak originated from a laboratory in China.

“I can’t tell you that. I’m not allowed to tell you that,” Trump said at a White House event when asked what evidence he has seen to make him believe that the virus emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China.

Trump’s comments went much further than a statement from the top US intelligence agency on Thursday, which said, for the first time, that it, “Concurs with the wide scientific consensus that the COVID-19 virus was not manmade or genetically modified.”

(With inputs from BBC)

 

 

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