Washington: US President Donald Trump on Wednesday called the coronavirus pandemic the worst “attack” the country had ever experienced and blamed China for not stopping it, amid a deepening war of words between the United States and China over the virus.
“This is worse than Pearl Harbor. This is worse than the World Trade Center,” Trump said at a White House event, referring to the Japanese bombing of the US airbase that brought the Americans into the second world war and the September 11 attacks.
“It should have never happened,” Trump continued. “It could have been stopped at the source. It could have been stopped in China. It should have been stopped right at the source, and it wasn’t.”
Trump’s administration has become increasingly critical of China as the death toll in the US has risen, blaming it for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and demanding the country be more transparent about its handling of the disease, which first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan late last year.
More than 255,000 people around the world have now died from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, including at least 70,000 in the US.
Most experts believe the virus originated in a Wuhan food market that also sold illegal wildlife and jumped from animals to people, but both Trump and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have said there is significant evidence it came from a laboratory.
