It is not clear what the consequences would be
The US President Donald Trump warned of ‘consequences’ if China is found ‘knowingly responsible’ for COVID19 crisis.
“Well, if they were knowingly responsible, certainly. If they did — if it was a mistake: a mistake is a mistake. But if it were knowingly responsible, yeah, then there should be consequences. You’re talking about, you know, potentially lives like nobody has seen since 1917,” he said in the daily briefing on April 18.
He was unclear what the consequences would be. Expressing disappointment over handling of the crisis by China, he also cast doubt over the official number of victims reported by China.
President Donald Trump also indicated that US-China relations were good “until they did this”.
He said, “Our relationship with China was good until they did this. Once we found out about this — once we found out — look, we just made a trade deal where China is going to have to buy $250 billion a year on our product. Fifty billion from the farmers. Forty to fifty billion from the farmers. The relationship was good when we were signing that, but then all of a sudden, you hear about this.”
“So it’s a big — it’s a big difference. You know, the question was asked, “Would you be angry at China?” Well, the answer might very well be a very resounding “yes,” but it depends: Was it a mistake that got out of control or was it done deliberately? Okay? That’s a big difference between those two. In either event, they should have let us go in. You know, we asked to go in very early, and they didn’t want us in. I think they were embarrassed. I think they knew it was something bad, and I think they were embarrassed,” he added.
