Will China pay a price on the world stage for its actions concerning the spread of COVID-19 and its secrecy? That looks more likely as President Donald Trump suggested on Saturday that he would re-evaluate the United States’s relationship with China. Trump has been joined by other world leaders.
“Our relationship with China was good until they did this. Look, we just made a trade deal where China is going to have to buy $250 billion a year in our products, … $40 to $50 billion from the farmers. Then all of a sudden you heard about this,” he told the press during a White House Coronavirus Task Force briefing.
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“The question was asked: Would you be angry at China? The answer might be a very well resounding ‘Yes.’
“But it depends. Was it a mistake that got out of control? Or was it done deliberately? In either event, they should have let us go in.
“We asked to go in very early and they would not let us in,” Trump said.
It’s not clear if Trump was referring to the origin of the coronavirus or the regime’s lack of transparency about infections and deaths.
There is growing evidence that the virus may be connected to a biologic laboratory in Wuhan — the epicenter of the outbreak. Polls show Americans of all political persuasions agree that China must suffer consequences.
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The United States is not the only country that has suggested it will review its relationship with the Chinese communist regime.
On Thursday, the UK foreign secretary and acting Prime Minister Dominic Raab said that Britain’s relationship with China will no longer be “business as usual” after the COVID-19 pandemic is over. That refrain is being echoed around the world.
“There absolutely needs to be a very, very deep dive after the event and review of the lessons, including of the outbreak of the virus,” Raab said at a press conference in London. “I don’t think we can flinch from that at all.”
When asked if there would be a “reckoning” with Beijing after the crisis ends, Raab, who is standing in for Prime Minister Boris Johnson as he recovers from the CCP virus, replied: “There’s no doubt we can’t have business as usual after this crisis, and we’ll have to ask the hard questions about how it came about and how it could have been stopped earlier.”
