The repeated suggestion by President Donald Trump that China “created” coronavirus is not putting the brakes on their trade partnership.
China is set to buy more than 30 million tonnes of crops from the United States.
The move to stockpile is to protect itself from supply chain disruptions due to the coronavirus pandemic.
China will add about 10 million tonnes of soybeans, 20 million tonnes of corn, and 1 million tonnes of cotton to reserves.
The bulk of the crops would be imports from the U.S. under the Phase 1 trade deal signed in January.
“The main message from (Beijing) is to secure people’s livelihood. It is a good time to build up reserves, especially when prices of the goods are at quite low levels,” Reuters quoted a source.
The China-U.S. deal seems to be going smoothly despite the face-off over the origin of coronavirus.
Trump at a press briefing with members of the Coronavirus Task Force, spoke on the deal with China.
“We made a great trade deal where they buy $250billion. And they’re paying tariffs. They paid us tens of billions of dollars. I’ve given $12billion one year, $16billion another year, and $19billion to our farmers and ranchers.
“But, you know, I ran on China and other countries, the way they were ripping us off. And China understood that….we ended up making an incredible deal with China for tens of billions of dollars of product: $40 to $50 billion to the farmers.
“Now, of course, the virus came along, and I’m not happy. And I let him know I’m not happy. We had a very bad relationship with China…then we had a good relationship, because we made a great deal.
“But we’re not happy. This is not a good thing that happened. It came out of China, so we’re not — we’re not in a position where we’re going to say much yet”, he said.
DAILY POST recalls that at several times, Trump, at press conferences and on Twitter, referred to COVID-19 as “Chinese virus”
The president stopped using the phrase late March. However, he still holds his view that China knows more than it is telling the world.
“I don’t regret it (comments) but they accused us of having done it through our soldiers, they said our soldiers did it on purpose, what kind of a thing is that?” Trump told Fox.
“Everyone knows it came out of China, but I decided we shouldn’t make any more of a big deal out of it. I think I made a big deal. I think people understand it,” he added.
Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, also in a chat with Fox, said: “We know this virus originated in Wuhan. We really need the Chinese government to open up on exactly how this virus spread.”
The accusation was part of reasons Trump instructed his administration to stop funding the WHO.
But Beijing continues to restate that claims about the “creation” of the virus in a Wuhan laboratory are false.
Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian, echoed that the WHO “have said multiple times there is no evidence the new coronavirus was created in a laboratory.”
In his reaction, Yuan Zhiming, the head of the Institute of Virology in Wuhan, rejected America’s allegations that the laboratory manufactured coronavirus.
Zhiming stated that he and his team knows what kind of virus research is going on in the institute and how it manages viruses and samples.
“There’s no way this virus came out from us. There is no evidence to prove that the virus has artificial or synthetic traces”, the official told state television.
