President Donald Trump has in recent months lambasted China over the coronavirus pandemic, but he praised Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s handling of the deadly disease for months at the beginning of the outbreak, CNN reports. “I think they've handled it professionally and I think they're extremely capable and I think President Xi is extremely capable and I hope that it's going to be resolved,” he said on February 13. Yet even as cases skyrocketed in the US and Trump’s ire with China grew, he directed his actions not at Beijing but at the World Health Organization. Trump said last week that he could not say when he had last spoken to his Chinese counterpart. “I have not spoken to him in a while because I don’t want to speak to him,” he said.

Source: The Standard October 23, 2020 01:18 UTC