Sunday evening, on a townhall event on Fox News, President Trump theorized that China might have let the coronavirus affect the rest of the world because they knew it would cripple their own economy and they didn’t want to suffer alone. He stated, “They said, ‘Hey look, this is going to have a huge impact on China and we might as well let the rest of the world,’ because the last people they want — We’ve had a great year against China prior to the virus coming.”
Fox News’ Martha MacCallum triggered Trump’s response by asking, “Is there any suggestion that it was anything nefarious or that it was just a mistake?”
Trump answered:
Personally, I think they made a horrible mistake and they didn’t want to admit it. We wanted to go in; they didn’t want us there. Even World Health wanted to go in, they admitted, but much later, not immediately. And my opinion is they made a mistake, they tried to cover it, they tried to put it out just like a fire. It’s really like trying to put out a fire. They couldn’t put out the fire. What they really treated the world badly on, they stopped people going into China, but they didn’t stop people going into the USA and all over the world.
So you could fly out of Wu Han where the primary problem was, all of the problems essentially, also where the lab is, but you could fly out of Wuhan and you could go to different parts of the world, but you couldn’t go to Beijing and you couldn’t go to any place in China. So what’s that all about? In other words, they knew they had a problem.
He continued, “I think they were embarrassed by the problem, very embarrassed. And the case could be made. They said, “Hey look, this is going to have a huge impact on China and we might as well let the rest of the world,” because the last people they want — We’ve had a great year against China prior to the virus coming. I told you 67 or so years, the worst economy they’ve had, worst almost on record that they’ve ever had because of my negotiations and because I tax them on the product that they brought in. And by the way, they paid for that tax. It wasn’t our people. They paid for that tax. They devalued their currency. But here’s the thing, they allow this to go into our country. They allowed it to go into other countries.”
MacCallum queried, “Does it change how you feel about President Xi? Does it change your relationship with him?”
Trump replied, “Look, I finished a trade deal that everybody said would be impossible to get and not only a trade deal, it was a great deal for this country, but that was done months before the virus came. I’m not going to say anything. I had a very good relationship. He’s a strong man. He’s a tough man, but I have very good relationship with him, but this should never have happened, this should never have happened. This virus should not have spread all over the world. They should have put it out. They should have let us and other people and other countries go in and put it out because people knew what was happening.”
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