By Steve Holland
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump urged China on Tuesday to be transparent with what it knows about the origin of the coronavirus that emerged from Wuhan, China, and has wreaked havoc on the world.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday there was “a significant amount of evidence” that the new coronavirus emerged from a Chinese laboratory, but did not dispute U.S. intelligence agencies’ conclusion that it was not man-made.
The Chinese state-backed Wuhan Institute of Virology has dismissed the allegations, and other U.S. officials have downplayed their likelihood. Most experts believe the virus originated in a market selling wildlife in Wuhan and jumped from animals to people.
Trump, speaking to reporters outside the White House before leaving on a trip to Arizona, said the United States would release its report detailing the origins of the novel coronavirus over time, but gave no other details or timeline.
“We will be reporting very definitively over a period of time,” the Republican president said.
Trump, who initially praised China over its response to the outbreak but has since blamed Beijing harshly over the virus, also said that he has not spoken to Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“We want them to be transparent. We want to find out what happened so it never happens again,” he said.
(Reporting by Steve Holland and Tim Ahmann; writing by Susan Heavey, Editing by Franklin Paul and Jonathan Oatis)
