Donald Trump promised Thursday to win the "medical war" against the spread of the Coronavirus and called on the Food and Drug Administration to remove all administrative obstacles to the approval of treatment.
"This is a medical war, we have to win it," said the President of the United States at a White House press conference. "We have to remove all barriers," he said, promising the rapid availability of chloroquine, an antimalarial that could be effective.
Read >> Is chloroquine an old drug for the new coronavirus?
Aggressive speech towards Beijing
The day before, Donald Trump had adopted a more aggressive rhetoric towards China's management of the coronavirus epidemic, believing that Beijing should have warned the whole world earlier and rejecting the criticisms according to which to qualify this virus as " Chinese virus "was racist.
The President's remarks mark a new escalation in the war of words between Washington and Beijing, which has intensified around the coronavirus epidemic and press freedom.
While Donald Trump has so far refrained from publicly criticizing China, praising even at first the efforts and transparency of the Chinese authorities, he adopted the same line as his main advisers at a press conference to the White House.
"I don't know if we can say that China is to blame," he said. "What is certain is that we were not warned early. It would have been useful if we had known before. But it (the virus) comes from China, there is no question on it - nobody questions that ".
In a statement delivered in the preamble, Donald Trump spoke of an American war "against the Chinese virus".
When asked if he was wrong to call it the epidemic, which could harm the Asian community in the United States, he replied, "No, not at all. I think they would agree 100 "He's from China, there's nothing to argue about."
The White House chief noted that Chinese officials have tried to blame the U.S. military for the onset of the virus. "It can't happen, it won't happen," said Trump.
The tone and the words adopted by the American president contrast with the praises expressed last week with regard to his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping and the sharing of data on the virus by the Chinese authorities.
Without directly mentioning Xi Jinping, Donald Trump said the Chinese government could have warned about the virus much earlier.
At least one confirmation case has been confirmed in each of the 50 US states. More than 7,300 people have been infected with the epidemic in the United States.
With Reuters
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