‘I can do a lot’: Trump blames China for Covid-19 & seeking to ‘undermine’ his re-election

US President Donald Trump believes China “will do anything they can” to make him lose his re-election bid, pointing to Beijing's handling of the coronavirus outbreak that has killed over 60,000 Americans already.

Taking aim at Beijing, Trump told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday that the country would prefer to see his Democratic rival Joe Biden take the Oval Office in November, stating it would pull out all the stops to see him win – though the former VP would first need to secure his party’s nomination.

China will do anything they can to have me lose this race.

The president has ramped up attacks on China in recent weeks, insisting it concealed information about the coronavirus in the early stages of the outbreak and has all but blamed the country for the health crisis. Asked whether he would use tariffs or debt write-offs to penalize Beijing, Trump refused to offer much detail, saying only that “we’re looking for what happened” and how to respond to the alleged "cover-up."

There are many things I can do.

Beijing has maintained that it tackled the pandemic appropriately and that it shared information about the virus with the international community as soon as it was available. Chinese officials have also hit back at the US accusations, suggesting Washington’s handling of Covid-19 has been slow and ineffective, while warning against politicizing the global crisis.

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