Trump mulling imposition of tariff on China for mishandling Covid, says 'we're not happy'

US President Donald Trump on Friday reiterated that imposing an additional tariff on China for allegedly mishandling coronavirus outbreak is "certainly an option". Trump was responding to a question about his remarks a day earlier in which he had indicated at imposing a tariff on China as a punishment for spread of coronavirus.

"It's certainly an option. It's certainly an option," Trump said but did t give a timeline for this. We're going to see what happens. A lot of things are happening with respect to China. We're t happy, obviously, with what happened. This is a bad situation all over world, 182 countries. But we'll be having a lot to say about that," he said in response to a question.

READ | Xi Jinping says China's battle against coronavirus major strategic achievement

Meanwhile, in an interview, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused China of being n-transparent on issue of coronavirus. Pompeo said China claimed it didn't kw where coronavirus came from, but those inside China, who tried to talk about virus, were denied access. y were told "don't talk about that, stop it" and discussions were banned early on, he added.

READ | WHO 'keen' to investigate origin of coronavirus on invitation from China

Trump threatens China 

Trump has repeatedly threatened China of consequences if it is found that China kwingly released virus. Last week, he said that US is doing "very serious" investigation against China, indicating his administration is looking at a lot more money as compensation from Beijing than euro 130 billion being sought by Germany. “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. 

READ | US contemplating retaliatory measures against China for poor handling of COVID outbreak

Trump halts funding, WHO responds

Last week, Trump halted US funding to UN body after alleging mismanaging coronavirus crisis. Trump has blamed WHO's "very much sided" approach to China on coronavirus crisis, asserting that many people are unhappy with global health ncy and feel that "it's been very unfair".  In an obvious reference to China, he said: "Everybody kws what's going on re." 

Responding to  halt of funds, WHO director-general Tedros Adham Ghebreyesus on Thursday said that y regret  decision made by Trump. He said that US has been a 'longstanding & generous friend' and maintained that WHO 'works with all nations equally, and it does t 'discriminate'. 

(with PTI inputs)

READ | China 'mishandled' coronavirus outbreak: White House