POINTING FINGERS

Trump Administration Tries and Fails to Get the United Nations to Blame China for Coronavirus, Says Report

The U.S. is said to have demanded that a joint statement explicitly says the virus originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan.

The Trump administration is trying and, so far, failing to get the United Nations Security Council to blame China for the novel coronavirus pandemic, according to a report from NBC News. Talks among UN Security Council nations over a joint declaration on the pandemic are said to have hit a brick wall over a U.S. demand that the statement explicitly says that the virus originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan. The Trump administration also wants the declaration to say exactly when the outbreak began there. China’s diplomats have reportedly reacted with fury to the demand, and they want to put their own language into the statement praising China’s efforts to contain the virus. China can veto any statement, and has reportedly hit out at the U.S. for “politicizing the outbreak and blaming China,” and “shirking its own responsibilities, which severely poisoned the atmosphere of global cooperation in containing the outbreak.”