The US is carrying out a
"very serious" investigation against China, President Donald Trump
has said, indicating that his administration is looking at a bigger
compensation from Beijing than the USD 140 billion being sought by Germany over
the coronavirus pandemic. The deadly contagion, which originated in China in
mid-November, has so far killed more than 2 lakh people and infected over three
million globally. The largest number of them are in the US: more than 56,000
deaths and over one million infections.
Leaders of the US, the UK
and Germany increasingly believe that the unfortunate deaths of so many people
and destruction of the global economy could have been avoided, if China had
shown transparency and shared the information about the virus in its early
phases.
Many countries have started
talking about claiming compensation from China. Trump, during the Rose Garden
press conference on Monday, was asked about Germany planning to send a bill to
China for euro 130 billion (USD 140 billion) for the damages.
"Would your
administration look at doing the same?' "Well, we can do something much
easier than that. We have ways of doing things a lot easier than that,' the
President replied. "Germany is looking at things and we're looking at
things and we're talking about a lot more money than Germany is talking
about.
"We haven't determined
the final amount yet, but "it is very substantial," Trump said. After
the US, Europe has been the worst hit by the virus. In India, mainly because of
the early and aggressive preventive measures, the fatalities have remained low
at 886 and infections at 28,000.
"If you look at the
world, I mean, this is a worldwide damage. This is a damage to the US but this
is a damage to the world," said the President. Trump said there are
"a lot of ways" one can hold China accountable for the spread of the
virus. "We're doing very serious investigations, as you probably know. We
are not happy with China,' he said.
"We are not happy with
that whole situation because we believe it could've been stopped at the source.
It could've been stopped quickly and it wouldn't have spread all over the
world. And we think that should have happened. So, we'll let you know at the
appropriate time, but we are doing serious investigations," Trump said. --
PTI