Trump threatens China with Covid bill even bigger than Germany's €130 Billion; 'lot more'

United States is doing a "very serious" investigation against China, President Donald Trump said, indicating his ministration 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,” Trump told reporters at his White House news conference Monday.

dely virus, which originated in China in mid-vember has so far killed more than two lakh people and infected over 30 lakh globally. largest number of m are in US: more than 56,000 deaths and over 10 lakh infections. After US, Europe has been worst hit by virus. In India, mainly because of early and aggressive preventive measures, fatalities have remained low at 886 and infections at 28,000.

Leers of se countries including US, UK and Germany increasingly believe that unfortunate deaths of so many people and destruction of global ecomy could have been avoided, if China h shown transparency and shared information about virus in its early phases. As such many countries have started talking about claiming compensation from China.

Trump, during Rose Garden press conference, was asked about Germany planning to send a bill to China for euro 130 billion for dams. “Would your ministration look at doing same?”

“Well, we can do something much easier than that. We have ways of doing things a lot easier than that,” Trump replied. “We haven't determined final amount yet,” but "it is very substantial".

“If you look at world, I mean, this is a worldwide dam. This is a dam to US but this is a dam to world,” said US president.

Trump said re are "a lot of ways" one can hold China accountable for spre of virus. “We're doing very serious investigations, as you probably kw. We are t happy with China,” he said.

“We are t happy with that whole situation because we believe it could've been stopped at source. It could've been stopped quickly and it wouldn't have spre all over world. And we think that should have happened. So, we'll let you kw at appropriate time, but we are doing serious investigations,” Trump said.

In recent weeks, re has been an increasing support towards move to hold China accountable.

“China has been untruthful and unforthcoming since beginning of this pandemic. We must hold m accountable for this cover up,” Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith said in a tweet.

On Monday, Congressman Earl L. "Buddy" Carter signed on to a resolution establishing a bicameral, bipartisan joint select committee to investigate origins of and China’s handling of 2019 vel coronavirus.

"We kw China has lied and covered up important information about COVID-19 since beginning," said Carter.

"w, thousands of Americans have died, people have lost ir jobs and world has been turned upside down. Congress has responsibility to investigate origins of virus and extent of China's deception. American people have been devastated by this disease and y deserve answers. We should approve this resolution without delay and get to work as soon as possible," he said.

In a related development, Congressmen Alex X. Mooney and Matt Gaetz, Senator Martha McSally and a bicameral coalition of over 50 or lawmakers sent a letter to House and Senate leership requesting that COVID-19 relief funds be given to China’s state-run bio-nt laboratory, Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).

“After dam coronavirus has inflicted upon world, US taxpayer dollars should longer be sent to labs we kw conduct sloppy research and dangerous experiments. I commend President Trump’s response to this invisible enemy and his determination to hold China accountable for its actions,” Mooney said.

Reports indicate that for years WIV has received taxpayer dollars from US National Institutes of Health for secretive and dangerous laboratory research on coronavirus-infected bats.