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 the 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 the spread of coronavirus.

"It's certainly an option. It's certainly an option," Trump said but did not give a timeline for this. We're going to see what happens. 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, 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 non-transparent on the issue of coronavirus. Pompeo said China claimed it didn't know where the coronavirus came from, but those inside China, who tried to talk about the virus, were denied access. They 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 knowingly released the virus. Last week, he said that the 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 the UN body after alleging mismanaging the coronavirus crisis. Trump has blamed WHO's "very much sided" approach to China on coronavirus crisis, asserting that many people are unhappy with the global health agency and feel that "it's been very unfair".  In an obvious reference to China, he said: "Everybody knows what's going on there." 

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

(with PTI inputs)

READ | China 'mishandled' coronavirus outbreak: White House