In what may further deteriorate relations with China, US President Donald Trump said that he doesn’t want to speak to President Xi Jinping for now. Trump even went a step ahead and hinted that he may even snap ties with the second largest economy in the world going forward. China’s failure to contain coronavirus is disappointing and casts a shadow over the successful trade deal signed in January between the two nations, Trump told Fox Business News.
“So I make a great trade deal and now I say this doesn’t feel the same to me. The ink was barely dry and the plague came over. And it doesn’t feel the same to me,” Trump added.
It also comes days after the Chinese-state media reported that the government advisers in Beijing are mulling holding new talks on the trade deal with the US. The two countries are in the beginning of the year-signed Phase-1 of a trade deal which enabled a bitter two-year tariff war rattling the global economy.
Trump has also confirmed that his administration has asked for the withdrawal of billions of dollars in the US pension fund investments in China. He also said that other similar actions were in consideration by the administration. “Billions of dollars, billions… Yeah, I pulled it back,” Trump told Fox Business News.
Meanwhile, more than 80,000 people have died from coronavirus in the US so far. According to the numbers released on Monday by Johns Hopkins University, it’s by far the highest death toll of any nation.