President Trump on U.S. Seeking Compensation From China Over COVID-19: ‘We Have Not Determined the Final Amount’

President Donald Trump says the U.S. is investigating how China has dealt with the coronavirus outbreak and would look at pursuing “substantial” damages from Beijing.

During a press conference at the White House Rose Garden on Monday, Trump again leveled accusations at China’s handling of the pandemic.

Trump and some members of his administration have suggested China should be punished for its response, amid claims of covering up the outbreak and a lack of transparency over the number of deaths and infections.

Trump revisited the theme on Monday, telling reporters there were “a lot of ways you can hold them accountable,” that the U.S. was conducting “serious investigations,” and that “we are not happy with China.”

“We are not happy with that whole situation because we believe they could have been stopped at the source, quickly and not have spread over the world,” he said, adding: “We think that should have happened.”

Trump was asked about what he thought of an article from April 15 in the German newspaper Bild, which called for China to pay Berlin $165 billion in compensation, a figure the publication estimated was the cost of the virus to the German economy, and whether his administration would “look at doing the same.”

Trump replied: “We could do something easier than that, we have ways of doing things a lot easier than that. Germany is looking at things and we’re looking at things. We are talking more money than Germany is talking about.

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