![\"\"](\"http:\/\/en.bornomalanews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/Donald-Trump-US-300x165.jpg\")
International Desk: In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, US President Donald Trump said he believes that China may have intentionally allowed the coronavirus to spread beyond its borders in order to damage other global economies.<\/p>\nInternational Desk: In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, US President Donald Trump said he believes that China may have intentionally allowed the coronavirus to spread beyond its borders in order to damage other global economies.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a chance it was intentional,\u201d Trump said, in order to prolong the damage to competing economies, though he acknowledged that he did not have any evidence to support that claim.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re saying, man, we\u2019re in a mess,\u201d he said. \u201cThe United States is killing us. Don\u2019t forget, my economy during the last year and a half was blowing them away. And the reason is the tariffs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump softened his claim in the same interview: \u201cI don\u2019t think they would do that,\u201d he said, acknowledging that the virus could have spread unintentionally. \u201cBut you never know.\u201d<\/p>\n
China\u2019s economy shrunk 6.8% during the first quarter because of shutdowns related to the pandemic; the US saw a GDP contraction of 4.8% during the same period.<\/p>\n
As the pandemic began spreading in earnest in the United States, President Trump and other high-ranking officials in his administration began to circulate a controversial theory that the coronavirus originated in a lab in Wuhan, China, though there is no evidence supporting this claim either.<\/p>\n
The Trump administration has been a vehement critic of the Chinese government\u2019s handling of the pandemic, saying China should have acted sooner to contain the virus.<\/p>\n
Trump also addressed his predictions for the economy in the leadup to election day, saying that he expects a \u201ctremendous increase in GDP.\u201d<\/p>\n
China was widely considered to be past the worst of the Covid-19 outbreak that started in Wuhan last December. Restaurants and shops had reopened, and life had gradually returned to normal. A slew of new cases in Beijing last week, however, prompted the government to institute a \u201csoft lockdown\u201d as the city entered a \u201cwartime emergency mode.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
International Desk: In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, US President Donald Trump said he believes that China may have intentionally allowed the coronavirus to spread beyond its borders in order to damage other global economies. \u201cThere\u2019s a chance it was intentional,\u201d Trump said, in order to prolong the damage to competing economies, though […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":60004,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2,5,14],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\t\n