US President Donald Trump defends calling coronavirus a ‘Chinese Virus’, claims it is a ‘very accurate term’

Reuters photo

Defending his decision to call the coronavirus spreading rapidly across the world as “Chinese Virus”, US President Donald Trump on Tuesday (March 17) said that he is simply trying to defeat Beijing's false narrative that the US military was involved in the outbreak of deadly virus.

“Well, China was putting out information which was false that our military did this to them. That was false. And rather than having an argument, I said I had to call it where it came from. It did come from China,” the President said at a press conference in White House.

“So I think it’s a very accurate term. I didn’t appreciate the fact that China was saying that our military gave it to them. Our military did not give it to anybody,” Trump added.

Later, during a meeting with CEOs of the hotel and tourism industry by using the term “China Virus” and rejected claims that the term created a stigma against the Chinese. “I don’t think so. I think saying that our military did to them creates a stigma,” he asserted.

On Monday (March 16), President Trump tweeted that he plans to bail out airlines and other industries “that are particularly affected by the Chinese Virus.”  Only a few hours earlier, Trump held a White House news conference on the emerging coronavirus outbreak and was praised for finally offering a relatively sober assessment of the emerging disaster.  

But shortly after that, the President tweeted, calling COVID-19 the “China virus” for the first time and giving voice to a hateful blame game that has been simmering among hardcore right-wingers for weeks. Trump, who has previously called the disease a “foreign virus,” tweeted: “The United States will be powerfully supporting those industries, like Airlines and others, that are particularly affected by the Chinese Virus.”  

With the coronavirus spreading from China into the US and around the world, both nations are trading tit-for-tat claims about its origins. The tense back-and-forth over what to call the virus is the latest chapter in a broader clash between the world’s two largest economies that ranges from trade and military competition to network equipment made by Huawei Technologies Co.