The G7 didn’t issue a statement on coronavirus this week because the United States insisted on calling it the ‘Wuhan virus’, it has been reported.
The US, which currently holds the presidency of the group of international leaders, circulated a 12-page draft statement following a virtual meeting of foreign ministers about Covid-19.
But the proposed statement referred to the disease as the “Wuhan virus” and reportedly blamed China for the spread of the virus.
A European Diplomat told CNN: “What the [US] State Department has suggested is a red line. You cannot agree with this branding of this virus and trying to communicate this.”
Rather than deliver a joint statement, several member states have since put out individual statements.
Donald Trump has repeatedly and insistently referred to Covid-19 as “the Chinese virus” in press conferences and public statements.
Yesterday he said he would stop using the term, but did not regret using it.
“I don’t regret it, 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?”, he said in an interview with Fox News.
(Image: Getty Images)
“Look, 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. But that all began when they said our soldiers started it. Our soldiers had nothing to do with it.”
Meanwhile, it’s thought US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo – who took part in the G7 meeting and whose department drafted the proposed statement – has picked up Trump’s anti-China baton.
In an interview with US talk radio host Hugh Hewitt, Mr Pompeo said: “Everybody’s got a different theory. My theory is we should always be accurate with respect to how we identify something.
“This virus began in Wuhan, I have referred to it as the Wuhan virus.
“It is important that the world understands how this began because we need transparency to save lives. It is that simple. We need facts and data.
“China has a special responsibility to be transparent because the outbreak began in China, in Wuhan, and the Chinese government was the first to know about it.”
And US Ambassador to the UK, Woody Johnson, blamed China for endangering the world with coronavirus.
“First it tried to suppress the news,” Ambassador Woody Johnson wrote in an article for The Times today, adding that Beijing had then selectively shared critical information while stonewalling international health authorities.
“Had China done the right things at the right time, more of its own population, and the rest of the world, might have been spared the most serious impact of this disease,” the ambassador wrote.
In Beijing, foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said China had shared information and urged Washington to “cease politicizing the epidemic.”
