Forget the US and China having tit-for-tat over trade tariffs as the two countries have now moved on... to arguing about the 'true' origin of Coronavirus.
It's over five years since the disease upended every aspect of our lives and the conversation has now turned from the best way to protect ourselves from future pandemics to finger pointing over the culprit of the virus.
The global back and forth reignited last week when China's State Council Information Office made bombshell allegations that Covid-19 hadn't originated in a Wuhan wet market but instead leaked after an incident in a US bio-technology lab.
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"Prior to the outbreak in Wuhan, multiple regions in the US recorded positive SARS-CoV-2 test results and other evidence of the virus," the White Paper alleges, adding that it has been turned into a 'scapegoat' for the disease.
Washington of course hasn't taken the allegations lying down, as Trump has now responded by claiming the Coronavirus pandemic was started by a researcher spreading the disease to their girlfriend.
Making the shocking claim during a White House press conference, he told the cameras (via The Sun): "I said that right from day one it leaked out, whether it was to the girlfriend or somebody else, [a] scientist walked outside to have lunch with the girlfriend or was together with a lot of people, but that’s how it leaked out in my opinion.
"I’ve never changed that opinion, so it can leak out innocently, stupidly and incompetently, but innocently and half destroy the world."
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The bonkers suggestion about the origin of a pandemic, which has claimed the lives of over seven million globally since 2020, was accompanied by Trump's decision to pick up his dedicated 'executive order' pen and axing US funding for 'gain-of-function research' in countries such as China and Iran.
Gain-of-function research is when scientists will alter a pathogen for research purposes, often increasing its transmissibility and virulence.
"@POTUS just signed an executive order protecting Americans from dangerous gain-of-function research," read the announcement, shared on X via the White House's Rapid Response account.
Not content with digging the knife in, Trump's team decided to twist it further by naming Covid-19 as one of the examples in the order. "[The order] Protects Americans from lab accidents and other biosecurity incidents, such as those that likely caused COVID-19 and the 1977 Russian flu," the statement reads.
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"Prohibits Federal funding from contributing to foreign research likely to cause another pandemic. These measures will drastically reduce the potential for lab-related incidents involving gain-of-function research, like that conducted on bat coronaviruses in China by the EcoHealth Alliance and Wuhan Institute of Virology."
The order explains that federal funding will be 'prohibited' from 'contributing to foreign research likely to cause another pandemic'.
This isn't the first time in which American officials have claimed that Coronavirus was leaked from a Chinese laboratory, with intelligence officials previously suggesting the virus originated at the Wuhan Institute of Virology — claims which China has denied.
Topics: Donald Trump, US News, China, Coronavirus
Brenna Cooper