Taking aim at China, Trump says virus worse ‘attack’ than Pearl Harbor, 9/11

US President Donald Trump says the coronavirus pandemic is a worse “attack” on the United States than either Pearl Harbor or 9/11, taking aim once again at China, which he says should have stopped the disease in its tracks.

The president has ramped up his rhetoric against Beijing in recent weeks, as the death toll in the US has continued to climb, and as he agitates to reopen the shuttered — and stuttering — economy.

Globally the virus has infected 3.7 million people and killed more than 260,000 — a quarter of them in the US.

“It should have never happened,” Trump says of the disease that emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan last year. “Could have been stopped at the source. Could have been stopped in China.”

“This is really the worst attack we’ve ever had,” Trump tells reporters. “This is worse than Pearl Harbor. This is worse than the World Trade Center.”

The Japanese assault on the Pearl Harbor naval base in Hawaii drew the United States into World War II.

The September 11, 2001 jihadist attacks on that killed about 3,000 people and triggered two decades of war.

So far, more than 73,000 Americans have died of COVID-19, and Tom Frieden, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has predicted the US toll could top 100,000 by the end of May.

— AFP