Trump: New tariffs on China 'certainly an option'
US President Donald Trump has said imposing new tariffs on China is “certainly an option” in retaliation for the spread of the coronavirus out of Wuhan, China.
“A lot of things are happening with respect to China. We’re not happy, obviously with what happened. This is a bad situation — all over the world, 183 countries. But we’ll be having a lot to say about that. It’s certainly an option. It’s certainly an option,” Trump told reporters on Friday.
Trump has claimed that he has seen evidence that gives him a "high degree of confidence" the novel coronavirus originated in a laboratory in Wuhan, China.
He said on Monday that there were many options to "hold them accountable."
"We are not happy with China," he said.
"We are not happy with that whole situation because we believe it could have been stopped at the source," the mercurial US president said.
He suggested that he might seek damages from China over the COVID-19 virus outbreak.
Trump has reportedly tasked US intelligence agencies to find out more about the origins of the virus, which has infected about 3.3 million people and killed over 239,000.
The US intelligence community has however contradicted Trump and said that the coronavirus was not man-made or engineered.
"The entire Intelligence Community has been consistently providing critical support to US policymakers and those responding to the COVID-19 virus, which originated in China," the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in a statement.
"The intelligence community also concurs with the wide scientific consensus that the COVID-19 virus was not man-made or genetically modified."
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