Trump highlights COVID impact on economy, says 'relationship with China will not be same'

US President Donald Trump on September 25 said that he won't forget what China did to the United States and the rest of the world, adding that the relationship with Beijing would never be the same again. Trump also vowed to end the dependence on China by making the United States the largest manufacturing hub in the world if he was elected president. 

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"We did all these incredible things, with the economy with everything and then we got hit with this virus from China. They should never have let it happen. We won’t forget it. We closed up, we saved millions of lives. Imagine what would our popularity be if every day for four years you didn't hear any of this nonsense?" Trump said while addressing thousands of supporters at Newport Virginia on Friday. 

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'Doesn't mean the same'

"I had a very good relationship in China with President Xi, but you know what this pandemic has just..we made a great trade deal, but it just doesn't mean the same to me. Does that make any sense? It doesn't mean the same to me. It doesn't mean the same to me. Two weeks ago, they (China) had the largest order of corn to our farmers in our history, they had the largest order of soybeans, they had this massive order of beef, but you know what it just doesn't mean as much to me now as it did at one point. The ink wasn't even dry on the trade deal and this thing came in. They could have stopped it," Trump said during the event. 

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The United States and China signed a trade deal in January this year after two years of fierce tariff war on each other's products. Right after the Phase-1 of the agreement was reached, the United States was hit by the COVID-19 pandemic that was at the time spreading outwards from China. Trump had earlier downplayed the threat of the disease saying it would go away in a few months. But the outbreak did not die out and the US became the worst affected country with over 7 million cases and more than 2,00,000 deaths to date.

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