WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump said on April 29 he believes the Chinese regimes handling of the CCP virus is proof that Beijing “will do anything they can” to make him lose his re-election bid in November.
In an interview with Reuters in the Oval Office, Trump talked tough on the Chinese regime and said he was looking at different options in terms of consequences for Beijing over the virus. “I can do a lot,” he said.
Trump has been heaping blame on the Chinese regime for a global pandemic that has killed at least 60,000 people in the United States according to a Reuters tally, and thrown the U.S. economy into a deep recession.
The Republican president said he believed Chinese regime should have been more active in letting the world know about the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus much sooner.
Asked whether he was considering the use of tariffs or even debt write-offs for China, Trump would not offer specifics. “There are many things I can do,” he said. “Were looking for what happened.”
“China will do anything they can to have me lose this race,” said Trump. He said he believes Beijing wants his Democrat opponent, Joe Biden, to win the race to ease the pressure Trump has placed on Chinese regime over trade and other issues.
“Theyre constantly using public relations to try to make it like theyre innocent parties,” he said of Chinese officials.
He said the trade deal that he concluded with Chinese leader Xi Jinping aimed at reducing chronic U.S. trade deficits with China had been “upset very badly” by the economic fallout from the virus.
A senior Trump administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said on Wednesday that an informal “truce” in the war of words that Trump and Xi essentially agreed to in a phone call in late March now appeared to be over.
The two leaders had promised that their governments would do everything possible to cooperate to contain the CCP virus. In recent days, Washington and Beijing have traded increasingly bitter recriminations over the origin of the virus and the response to it.
However, Trump and his top aides, while stepping up their anti-CCP rhetoric, have stopped short of directly criticizing Xi, who the U.S. president has repeatedly called his “friend.”
Trump also said South Korea has agreed to pay the United States more money for a defense cooperation agreement but would not be drawn out on how much.
“We can make a deal. They want to make a deal,” Trump said. “Theyve agreed to pay a lot of money. Theyre paying a lot more Read More From Source
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The Epoch Times
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