Donald Trump At UNGA 2020: US President Urges United Nations To ‘Hold China Accountable For COVID-19’ As US-China Tensions Flare Over The Novel Virus

World leaders addressed an increasingly divided United Nations at its 75th General Assembly. The annual meeting on September 22 in New York was moved online this year because of COVID-19, with the pandemic high on the agenda, among other issues of global concern. Donald Trump accused Beijing of spreading what he called “the China virus” and demanded the UN hold it accountable. The US President said we will “defeat the virus, end the pandemic and will enter a new era of unprecedented prosperity”. Trump said, “we must hold accountable the nation which unleashed this plague onto the world: China”. Trump accused China & World Health Organisation (WHO) of falsely declaring that there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission in the earliest days of the virus. Trump also accused China of dumping millions of tons of plastic and thrash into the oceans, affecting the environment drastically. President Trump, whose own record on COVID-19 is under close scrutiny as the US heads towards elections, has frequently accused Beijing of covering up the virus, saying they could have stopped the disease spreading. China has called the attacks an unfounded distraction. The US death toll for coronavirus, at more than 200,000, is the highest in the world and President Trump has often downplayed the disease.