China may have knowingly misinformed the international community over the novel coronavirus, or might have made a mistake, U.S. President Donald Trump said at a news conference on Saturday.
“The question was asked, ‘would you be angry at China?’ The answer might very well be a very resounding yes, but it depends – was it a mistake that got out of control or was it done deliberately?,” Trump said.
“That’s a big difference between those two,” Trump added.
He expressed the belief that China was “embarrassed” over the virus.
Trump has accused Beijing of covering up information on the virus that broke out in the city of Wuhan in late 2019.
Trump has also ordered a halt in payments to the World Health Organisation, after partially blaming the organisation for the scale of coronavirus-related deaths and for what he says is an over-reliance on information from China.
