🕷️ Crawler Inspector

URL Lookup

Direct Parameter Lookup

Raw Queries and Responses

1. Shard Calculation

Query:

Response:

Calculated Shard: 84 (from laksa052)

2. Crawled Status Check

Query:

curl -X POST \
  'http://laksa084.int.ahrefs:8124/' \
  -H 'Content-Type: text/plain' \
  -H 'X-ClickHouse-Database: crawler3' \
  -H 'Authorization: Basic YXBpOg==' \
  -d 'SELECT getAhrefsURLFromUnparsed(src_unparsed) AS found_url, ifNull(toUnixTimestamp(download_stamp), 0) AS crawl_time, ifNull(toUnixTimestamp(props_url_first_seen), 0) AS first_indexed_time, download_http_code AS http_code, src_unparsed AS src_unparsed, src_root_hash AS src_root_hash, history_drop_reason AS history_drop_reason, meta_title AS meta_title, meta_descriptions AS meta_descriptions, attrs_boilerpipe_text AS attrs_boilerpipe_text, attrs_markdown AS attrs_markdown, attrs_readable_markdown AS attrs_readable_markdown, meta_canonical AS meta_canonical FROM crawler3.page_info_local FINAL PREWHERE (src_root_hash, src_unparsed) IN ((getAhrefsRootHashFromUnparsed(getAhrefsUnparsedNoserviceFromURL(\'https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/18/us/politics/china-virus.html\')), getAhrefsUnparsedNoserviceFromURL(\'https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/18/us/politics/china-virus.html\'))) FORMAT JSONEachRow'

Response:

{"found_url":"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/03\/18\/us\/politics\/china-virus.html","crawl_time":1772331122,"first_indexed_time":1584566171,"http_code":200,"src_unparsed":"com,nytimes!www,\/2020\/03\/18\/us\/politics\/china-virus.html s443","src_root_hash":"4566504020376537684","history_drop_reason":null,"meta_title":"Trump Defends Using ‘Chinese Virus’ Label, Ignoring Growing Criticism - The New York Times","meta_descriptions":["“It’s not racist at all,” the president said. But experts warned that the term could result in xenophobia."],"attrs_boilerpipe_text":"Advertisement\nSKIP ADVERTISEMENT\n“It’s not racist at all,” the president said. But experts warned that the term could result in xenophobia.\nSince the beginning of the outbreak, President Trump and high-ranking administration officials have sought to pinpoint blame for the spread of the virus on China.\nCredit...\nDoug Mills\/The New York Times\nPublished March 18, 2020\nUpdated March 18, 2021\nWASHINGTON — President Trump on Wednesday defended his increasingly frequent practice of calling\nthe coronavirus\nthe “\nChinese Virus\n,” ignoring a growing chorus of criticism that it is racist and anti-Chinese.\n“It’s not racist at all,” Mr. Trump said, explaining his rationale. “It comes from China, that’s why.”\nBut the term has angered Chinese officials and a wide range of critics, and China experts say labeling the virus that way will only ratchet up tensions between the two countries, while resulting in the kind of xenophobia that American leaders should discourage. Asian-Americans\nhave reported\nincidents of racial slurs and physical abuse because of the erroneous perception that China is the cause of the virus.\n“The use of this term is not only corrosive vis-à-vis a global audience, including here at home, it is also fueling a narrative in\nChina\nabout a broader American hatred and fear of not just the Chinese Communist Party but of China and Chinese people in general,” said Scott Kennedy, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.\nAt the White House briefing on Tuesday, Mr. Trump told reporters that he was attaching “China” to the name of the virus to combat a disinformation campaign promoted by Beijing officials that the American military was the source of the outbreak.\n“I didn’t appreciate the fact that China was saying that our military gave it to them,” Mr. Trump said. “I think saying that our military gave it to them creates a stigma.”\nThen in\ntwo\ntweets\non Wednesday morning, he pointedly referred to the “Chinese Virus.” When he was asked about the term during another appearance at the daily White House coronavirus briefing later in the day, he insisted that he was simply pointing out a fact: that the illness was first detected in China.\nPublic health officials have tried to avoid names that might result in discriminatory behavior against places or ethnic groups since releasing\nmore stringent guidelines\nfor naming viruses in 2015. But after the briefing, the White House\non Twitter\ncriticized what it called “the media’s fake outrage,” pointing to other illnesses that had been named after places, including the Ebola virus and the West Nile virus.\nMr. Kennedy said that past language used by Mr. Trump and his administration had eliminated any benefit of the doubt. “Given the Trump administration’s long record of statements and actions on immigration, immigrants and issues of race,” he said, “use of this term can’t but be interpreted as xenophobic and tinged with racist overtones.”\nAt Wednesday’s briefing, a reporter also asked the president what he thought of an unnamed White House official referring to the coronavirus as the “Kung Flu.” Mr. Trump skirted that question before asserting that the Chinese “probably would agree” with the coronavirus as the “Chinese” virus, though Chinese officials have made it clear they do not.\nMedical historians and public health experts — including some in Mr. Trump’s administration — have emphasized that pandemics have no ethnicity and stressed that associating them with an ethnic group can lead to discrimination.\nBut since the beginning of the outbreak in Wuhan, Mr. Trump has repeatedly signaled in his public remarks that he viewed the virus as a foreign threat, and has repeatedly highlighted his early decision to close American borders to Chinese travelers.\n“We closed it down to China, the source, very, very early,” Mr. Trump said to reporters on Tuesday. “Far earlier than even the great professionals wanted to do. And I think, in the end, that’s going to be — that will have saved a tremendous number of lives.”\nBut Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, said Mr. Trump’s travel measures fell far short of a comprehensive approach that would include testing and quarantines, and overall were “too little, too late.”\nThe virus most likely emerged in China in November or December, and it is clear that some travelers from China were already spreading the virus within the United States in January, before the restrictions went into place at the beginning of February, Mr. Huang said.\nStill, since the beginning of the outbreak, Mr. Trump and high-ranking administration officials have sought to pinpoint blame for the spread of the virus on China, and Beijing has responded in kind. The finger-pointing over which country has done less to contain the disease has caused tensions between the two nations almost daily.\nOn Tuesday, the Chinese government announced that it would be\nexpelling journalists from major news outlets\n, including The New York Times, in a response to the Trump administration’s decision to limit the number of Chinese citizens working in the United States for five propaganda outlets.\nAnd last week, Zhao Lijian, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman,\nshared the conspiracy theory\nthat the United States was behind the virus. “It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan,” he said on Twitter. “Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe us an explanation!”\nThe darker turn in U.S.-China relations has spilled out into public spats and private mistrust. While both countries have said that the trade deal\nthey signed in January\nremains on track, American officials have blamed China for mishandling the coronavirus epidemic, as well as for withholding exports of face masks and other protective medical equipment.\nAnd within the Trump administration, some officials who are China hawks have privately discussed a theory that the virus emerged not from a food market in Wuhan, as many news media reports have said, but from a nearby Chinese government laboratory, where virologists were carrying out research.\nThat\ntheory has been discussed\non Fox News by Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, an ally of Mr. Trump’s.\nCharlie Woo, the chief executive of Megatoys and the public policy committee chairman of the Committee of 100, an organization of prominent Chinese-Americans, said the administration’s language was dividing the public during a national emergency.\n“This crisis requires science, facts and clear language, not fear-mongering, finger-pointing and xenophobia by our public servants,” Mr. Woo said in a statement. “We face a global pandemic that calls for a truly global, unified response. Attempts to ascribe the virus to one culture, ethnicity or country can only hinder this effort, alienating people who could instead collaborate and support one another.”\nCharacteristically defiant in the face of criticism, the president’s allies joined him on Wednesday in defending his references to a Chinese virus.\nKellyanne Conway, the counselor to the president, said that Mr. Trump was just trying to be accurate. “I think what the president is saying is that is where it was first started,” she told reporters in the White House driveway.\nSenator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa,\nsaid on Twitter\nthat “I don’t understand why China gets upset bc we refer to the virus that originated there the ‘Chinese virus’ Spain never got upset when we referred to the Spanish flu in 1918&1919.”\nThe phrase “Spanish flu” is itself a misnomer: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say experts are\nstill not sure where\nthe disease originated.\nThe language has also extended to the president’s re-election effort. In a message emailed to supporters and posted on its website, the Trump-Pence 2020 campaign fueled the push to blame Beijing for the spread of the virus. It also accused former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic front-runner, of “siding with the Chinese.”\n“America is under attack — not just by an invisible virus, but by the Chinese,” said the campaign appeal, which was dated Wednesday.\nIt added: “What is Joe Biden up to as all this is happening? Siding with the Chinese and attacking the presidential candidate China fears most: Donald Trump.”\nPerhaps no administration official has been as consistent in connecting the virus to China as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. In a\npress briefing on Tuesday\n, Mr. Pompeo six times referred to the coronavirus as the “Wuhan virus,” after the city that was the epicenter of the virus in China.\nEven as he said that “now is not the time for recrimination,” Mr. Pompeo also again accused China of initially playing down the threat posed by what is now a pandemic.\n“We know this much: We know that the first government to be aware of the Wuhan virus was the Chinese government,” Mr. Pompeo said. “That imposes a special responsibility to raise the flag, to say: ‘We have a problem. This is different and unique and presents risk.’ And it took an awful long time for the world to become aware of this risk that was sitting there, residing inside of China.”\n“The Chinese Communist Party had a responsibility to do this — not only for Americans and Italians and South Koreans and Iranians who are now suffering, but for their own people as well,” Mr. Pompeo said.\nMr. Pompeo said the expulsions were just the latest example of how China wants to “deny the world the capacity to know what’s really going on inside of their country.”\nGovernment officials in China have publicly cast doubt on whether the coronavirus originated in Wuhan, as health authorities believe.\nBut a senior State Department official said on Wednesday that President Xi Jinping of China in early January repeatedly referred to the coronavirus as the “Wuhan” illness, and that many Chinese citizens still do.\nEdward Wong contributed reporting.\nKatie Rogers\nis a White House correspondent in the Washington bureau.\nLara Jakes\nis a diplomatic correspondent based in the Washington bureau of The New York Times. Over the past two decades, Ms. Jakes has reported and edited from more than 40 countries and covered war and sectarian fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, the West Bank and Northern Ireland.\nAna Swanson\nis based in the Washington bureau and covers trade and international economics for The New York Times. She previously worked at The Washington Post, where she wrote about trade, the Federal Reserve and the economy.\nA version of this article appears in print on\nMarch 19, 2020\n, Section A, Page 11 of the New York edition with the headline: Trump Calls It the ‘Chinese Virus.’ Critics Say That’s Racist and Provocative.\n.\nOrder Reprints\n|\nToday’s Paper\n|\nSubscribe\nRelated Content\nThe Covid-19 Pandemic\nEric Lee\/The New York Times\nTierney L. Cross\/The New York Times\nAndrea Verdelli for The New York Times\nMore in Politics\nStelios Misinas\/Reuters\nThe New York Times\nTierney L. Cross\/The New York Times\nEditors’ Picks\nKurt Iswarienko\/FX\nJessica Miglio\/Paramount Pictures\/Spyglass Media\nTrending in The Times\nEric Lee for The New York Times\nPhoto illustration by The New York Times; source photographs by Associated Press, Reuters and Getty Images\nKholood Eid for The New York Times\nLindsay D'Addato for The New York Times\nThe New York Times\nKenny Holston\/The New York Times\nHaiyun Jiang\/The New York Times\nMichael Putland\/Getty Images\nPhilip Cheung for The New York Times\nVanessa Woods\nAdvertisement\nSKIP ADVERTISEMENT","attrs_markdown":"[Skip to content](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/03\/18\/us\/politics\/china-virus.html#site-content)[Skip to site index](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/03\/18\/us\/politics\/china-virus.html#site-index)\n\nSearch & Section Navigation\n\nSection Navigation\n\nSearch\n\n[Politics](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/section\/politics)\n\n[Log in](https:\/\/myaccount.nytimes.com\/auth\/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2Fsubscription%2Fonboarding-offer%3FcampaignId%3D7JFJX%26EXIT_URI%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.nytimes.com%252F2020%252F03%252F18%252Fus%252Fpolitics%252Fchina-virus.html&asset=masthead)\n\nSaturday, February 28, 2026\n\n[Today’s Paper](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/section\/todayspaper)\n\nTrump Administration\n\n- live[U.S. Strikes Iran](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/live\/2026\/02\/28\/world\/iran-strikes-trump)\n  \n  Feb. 28, 2026, 9:10 p.m. ET1m ago\n- [OpenAI-Pentagon Agreement](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/02\/27\/technology\/openai-agreement-pentagon-ai.html)\n- [Trump’s Midterm Message](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/02\/27\/us\/politics\/trump-midterms-state-of-the-union.html)\n- [Trump in Epstein Files](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/02\/25\/us\/politics\/trump-epstein-files.html)\n- [Tariff Tracker](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2026\/business\/economy\/trump-tariff-tracker.html)\n- [Approval Rating](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/polls\/donald-trump-approval-rating-polls.html)\n\nAdvertisement\n\n[SKIP ADVERTISEMENT](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/03\/18\/us\/politics\/china-virus.html#after-top)\n\nSupported by\n\n[SKIP ADVERTISEMENT](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/03\/18\/us\/politics\/china-virus.html#after-sponsor)\n# Trump Defends Using ‘Chinese Virus’ Label, Ignoring Growing Criticism\n“It’s not racist at all,” the president said. But experts warned that the term could result in xenophobia.\n\n- Share full article\n\n![](https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2020\/03\/18\/us\/politics\/18dc-virus-name-sub\/merlin_170687655_2692c96d-4da0-4bde-b416-ee767f9a1c33-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale)\n\nSince the beginning of the outbreak, President Trump and high-ranking administration officials have sought to pinpoint blame for the spread of the virus on China.Credit...Doug Mills\/The New York Times\n\n[![Katie Rogers](https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2018\/06\/12\/multimedia\/author-katie-rogers\/author-katie-rogers-thumbLarge-v2.png)](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/by\/katie-rogers)[![Lara Jakes](https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2019\/07\/25\/reader-center\/author-lara-jakes\/author-lara-jakes-thumbLarge.png)](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/by\/lara-jakes)[![Ana Swanson](https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2018\/12\/10\/multimedia\/author-ana-swanson\/author-ana-swanson-thumbLarge-v2.png)](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/by\/ana-swanson)\n\nBy [Katie Rogers](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/by\/katie-rogers)[Lara Jakes](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/by\/lara-jakes) and [Ana Swanson](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/by\/ana-swanson)\n\nPublished March 18, 2020Updated March 18, 2021\n\n[阅读简体中文版](https:\/\/cn.nytimes.com\/usa\/20200319\/china-virus\/ \"Read in Simplified Chinese\")[閱讀繁體中文版](https:\/\/cn.nytimes.com\/usa\/20200319\/china-virus\/zh-hant\/ \"Read in Traditional Chinese\")\n\nWASHINGTON — President Trump on Wednesday defended his increasingly frequent practice of calling [the coronavirus](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/news-event\/coronavirus) the “[Chinese Virus](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2021\/03\/18\/us\/politics\/asian-politicians-racism.html),” ignoring a growing chorus of criticism that it is racist and anti-Chinese.\n\n“It’s not racist at all,” Mr. Trump said, explaining his rationale. “It comes from China, that’s why.”\n\nBut the term has angered Chinese officials and a wide range of critics, and China experts say labeling the virus that way will only ratchet up tensions between the two countries, while resulting in the kind of xenophobia that American leaders should discourage. Asian-Americans [have reported](https:\/\/twitter.com\/JiayangFan\/status\/1240111033550766080) incidents of racial slurs and physical abuse because of the erroneous perception that China is the cause of the virus.\n\n“The use of this term is not only corrosive vis-à-vis a global audience, including here at home, it is also fueling a narrative in [China](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/08\/23\/world\/asia\/china-coronavirus-normal-life.html) about a broader American hatred and fear of not just the Chinese Communist Party but of China and Chinese people in general,” said Scott Kennedy, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.\n\nAt the White House briefing on Tuesday, Mr. Trump told reporters that he was attaching “China” to the name of the virus to combat a disinformation campaign promoted by Beijing officials that the American military was the source of the outbreak.\n\n“I didn’t appreciate the fact that China was saying that our military gave it to them,” Mr. Trump said. “I think saying that our military gave it to them creates a stigma.”\n\nThen in [two](https:\/\/twitter.com\/realDonaldTrump\/status\/1240226752447873027?s=20) [tweets](https:\/\/twitter.com\/realDonaldTrump\/status\/1240234698053431305?s=20) on Wednesday morning, he pointedly referred to the “Chinese Virus.” When he was asked about the term during another appearance at the daily White House coronavirus briefing later in the day, he insisted that he was simply pointing out a fact: that the illness was first detected in China.\n\nPublic health officials have tried to avoid names that might result in discriminatory behavior against places or ethnic groups since releasing [more stringent guidelines](https:\/\/www.who.int\/mediacentre\/news\/notes\/2015\/naming-new-diseases\/en\/) for naming viruses in 2015. But after the briefing, the White House [on Twitter](https:\/\/twitter.com\/WhiteHouse\/status\/1240345890159824901?s=20) criticized what it called “the media’s fake outrage,” pointing to other illnesses that had been named after places, including the Ebola virus and the West Nile virus.\n\nMr. Kennedy said that past language used by Mr. Trump and his administration had eliminated any benefit of the doubt. “Given the Trump administration’s long record of statements and actions on immigration, immigrants and issues of race,” he said, “use of this term can’t but be interpreted as xenophobic and tinged with racist overtones.”\n\n## Editors’ Picks\n[![](https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2026\/02\/27\/multimedia\/27ST-CALVIN-KLEIN-TIKTOK-show-zftv\/27ST-CALVIN-KLEIN-TIKTOK-show-zftv-thumbLarge.jpg)What Was It Like to Work at Calvin Klein in the ’90s? Ask Them.](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/02\/27\/style\/love-story-carolyn-bessette-kennedy-calvin-klein.html)\n\n[![](https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2026\/02\/28\/magazine\/28mag-ethicist\/28mag-ethicist-thumbLarge.jpg)My Aging Mother Won’t Stop Driving. Should I Take Away Her Keys?](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/02\/28\/magazine\/aging-mother-driving-ethics.html)\n\n[![](https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2026\/02\/23\/well\/WELL-PITT-PSYCHOSIS1\/WELL-PITT-PSYCHOSIS1-thumbLarge.jpg)‘The Pitt’ Is Showing Us the Complicated Reality of Psychosis](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/02\/26\/well\/mind\/the-pitt-psychosis.html)\n\nAdvertisement\n\n[SKIP ADVERTISEMENT](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/03\/18\/us\/politics\/china-virus.html#after-pp_edpick)\n\nAt Wednesday’s briefing, a reporter also asked the president what he thought of an unnamed White House official referring to the coronavirus as the “Kung Flu.” Mr. Trump skirted that question before asserting that the Chinese “probably would agree” with the coronavirus as the “Chinese” virus, though Chinese officials have made it clear they do not.\n\nMedical historians and public health experts — including some in Mr. Trump’s administration — have emphasized that pandemics have no ethnicity and stressed that associating them with an ethnic group can lead to discrimination.\n\nBut since the beginning of the outbreak in Wuhan, Mr. Trump has repeatedly signaled in his public remarks that he viewed the virus as a foreign threat, and has repeatedly highlighted his early decision to close American borders to Chinese travelers.\n\n“We closed it down to China, the source, very, very early,” Mr. Trump said to reporters on Tuesday. “Far earlier than even the great professionals wanted to do. And I think, in the end, that’s going to be — that will have saved a tremendous number of lives.”\n\nBut Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, said Mr. Trump’s travel measures fell far short of a comprehensive approach that would include testing and quarantines, and overall were “too little, too late.”\n\nThe virus most likely emerged in China in November or December, and it is clear that some travelers from China were already spreading the virus within the United States in January, before the restrictions went into place at the beginning of February, Mr. Huang said.\n\nStill, since the beginning of the outbreak, Mr. Trump and high-ranking administration officials have sought to pinpoint blame for the spread of the virus on China, and Beijing has responded in kind. The finger-pointing over which country has done less to contain the disease has caused tensions between the two nations almost daily.\n\nOn Tuesday, the Chinese government announced that it would be [expelling journalists from major news outlets](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/03\/17\/business\/media\/china-expels-american-journalists.html), including The New York Times, in a response to the Trump administration’s decision to limit the number of Chinese citizens working in the United States for five propaganda outlets.\n\nAnd last week, Zhao Lijian, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, [shared the conspiracy theory](https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2020-03-13\/chinese-official-pushes-conspiracy-theory-u-s-army-behind-virus) that the United States was behind the virus. “It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan,” he said on Twitter. “Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe us an explanation!”\n\nThe darker turn in U.S.-China relations has spilled out into public spats and private mistrust. While both countries have said that the trade deal [they signed in January](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/01\/15\/business\/economy\/china-trade-deal.html) remains on track, American officials have blamed China for mishandling the coronavirus epidemic, as well as for withholding exports of face masks and other protective medical equipment.\n\nAnd within the Trump administration, some officials who are China hawks have privately discussed a theory that the virus emerged not from a food market in Wuhan, as many news media reports have said, but from a nearby Chinese government laboratory, where virologists were carrying out research.\n\nThat [theory has been discussed](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/02\/17\/business\/media\/coronavirus-tom-cotton-china.html) on Fox News by Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, an ally of Mr. Trump’s.\n\nCharlie Woo, the chief executive of Megatoys and the public policy committee chairman of the Committee of 100, an organization of prominent Chinese-Americans, said the administration’s language was dividing the public during a national emergency.\n\n“This crisis requires science, facts and clear language, not fear-mongering, finger-pointing and xenophobia by our public servants,” Mr. Woo said in a statement. “We face a global pandemic that calls for a truly global, unified response. Attempts to ascribe the virus to one culture, ethnicity or country can only hinder this effort, alienating people who could instead collaborate and support one another.”\n\nCharacteristically defiant in the face of criticism, the president’s allies joined him on Wednesday in defending his references to a Chinese virus.\n\nKellyanne Conway, the counselor to the president, said that Mr. Trump was just trying to be accurate. “I think what the president is saying is that is where it was first started,” she told reporters in the White House driveway.\n\nSenator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, [said on Twitter](https:\/\/twitter.com\/ChuckGrassley\/status\/1240245244169420800) that “I don’t understand why China gets upset bc we refer to the virus that originated there the ‘Chinese virus’ Spain never got upset when we referred to the Spanish flu in 1918&1919.”\n\nThe phrase “Spanish flu” is itself a misnomer: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say experts are [still not sure where](https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/flu\/pandemic-resources\/1918-pandemic-h1n1.html) the disease originated.\n\nThe language has also extended to the president’s re-election effort. In a message emailed to supporters and posted on its website, the Trump-Pence 2020 campaign fueled the push to blame Beijing for the spread of the virus. It also accused former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic front-runner, of “siding with the Chinese.”\n\n“America is under attack — not just by an invisible virus, but by the Chinese,” said the campaign appeal, which was dated Wednesday.\n\nIt added: “What is Joe Biden up to as all this is happening? Siding with the Chinese and attacking the presidential candidate China fears most: Donald Trump.”\n\nPerhaps no administration official has been as consistent in connecting the virus to China as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. In a [press briefing on Tuesday](https:\/\/www.state.gov\/secretary-michael-r-pompeo-remarks-to-the-press-6\/), Mr. Pompeo six times referred to the coronavirus as the “Wuhan virus,” after the city that was the epicenter of the virus in China.\n\nEven as he said that “now is not the time for recrimination,” Mr. Pompeo also again accused China of initially playing down the threat posed by what is now a pandemic.\n\n“We know this much: We know that the first government to be aware of the Wuhan virus was the Chinese government,” Mr. Pompeo said. “That imposes a special responsibility to raise the flag, to say: ‘We have a problem. This is different and unique and presents risk.’ And it took an awful long time for the world to become aware of this risk that was sitting there, residing inside of China.”\n\n“The Chinese Communist Party had a responsibility to do this — not only for Americans and Italians and South Koreans and Iranians who are now suffering, but for their own people as well,” Mr. Pompeo said.\n\nMr. Pompeo said the expulsions were just the latest example of how China wants to “deny the world the capacity to know what’s really going on inside of their country.”\n\nGovernment officials in China have publicly cast doubt on whether the coronavirus originated in Wuhan, as health authorities believe.\n\nBut a senior State Department official said on Wednesday that President Xi Jinping of China in early January repeatedly referred to the coronavirus as the “Wuhan” illness, and that many Chinese citizens still do.\n\nEdward Wong contributed reporting.\n\nMore on the U.S., China and the Coronavirus\n\n[![]()What the Ebola Crisis Can Teach Us About Quarantines March 19, 2020](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/03\/19\/us\/coronavirus-quarantines-ebola.html)\n\n[![]()China Announces That It Will Expel American Journalists March 17, 2020](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/03\/17\/business\/media\/china-expels-american-journalists.html)\n\n[![]()For Trump, a New Crisis and a Familiar Response: It’s China’s Fault, and Europe’s March 12, 2020](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/03\/12\/us\/politics\/trump-coronavirus-europe-allies.html)\n\n[![]()Politicians’ Use of ‘Wuhan Virus’ Starts a Debate Health Experts Wanted to Avoid March 10, 2020](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/03\/10\/us\/politics\/wuhan-virus.html)\n\n[![]()Trump Administration Restricts Entry Into U.S. From China Jan. 31, 2020](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/01\/31\/business\/china-travel-coronavirus.html)\n\n[Katie Rogers](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/by\/katie-rogers) is a White House correspondent in the Washington bureau.\n\n[Lara Jakes](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/by\/lara-jakes) is a diplomatic correspondent based in the Washington bureau of The New York Times. Over the past two decades, Ms. Jakes has reported and edited from more than 40 countries and covered war and sectarian fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, the West Bank and Northern Ireland.\n\n[Ana Swanson](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/by\/ana-swanson) is based in the Washington bureau and covers trade and international economics for The New York Times. She previously worked at The Washington Post, where she wrote about trade, the Federal Reserve and the economy.\n\nA version of this article appears in print on March 19, 2020, Section A, Page 11 of the New York edition with the headline: Trump Calls It the ‘Chinese Virus.’ Critics Say That’s Racist and Provocative.. [Order Reprints](https:\/\/nytimes.wrightsmedia.com\/) \\| [Today’s Paper](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/section\/todayspaper) \\| [Subscribe](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/subscriptions\/Multiproduct\/lp8HYKU.html?campaignId=48JQY)\n\nSee more on: [Donald Trump](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/spotlight\/donald-trump), [U.S. Politics](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/section\/politics), [State Department](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/topic\/state-department)\n\n- Share full article\n\n***\n## The Latest on the Trump Administration\n***\n- **Pentagon Cutting Academic Ties:** The Defense Department [has decided to sever relationships](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/02\/28\/us\/politics\/pentagon-universities-think-tanks.html) with nearly two dozen top universities and think tanks as part of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s campaign against what he calls anti-American values and “wokeness.”\n- **Boat Strikes:** The Pentagon’s new inspector general [has frozen a proposal](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/02\/28\/us\/politics\/trump-boat-strikes-pentagon.html) to evaluate military targeting in the Trump administration’s strikes on boats suspected of smuggling cocaine from South America, The New York Times has learned.\n- **Taiwan Arms Sale:** The Trump administration has delayed announcing [a package of arms sales to Taiwan](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/02\/27\/us\/politics\/trump-taiwan-arms-sale.html) valued at billions of dollars to avoid upsetting Xi Jinping, China’s leader, ahead of President Trump’s planned trip to Beijing in April, U.S. officials said.\n- **Kash Patel:** Trump’s F.B.I. director [is facing growing questions](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/02\/28\/us\/politics\/kash-patel-girlfriend.html) inside the administration over his and his girlfriend’s personal use of government jets and F.B.I. agents.\n- **Scouting America:** Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, [announced that the organization will discontinue programs and policies aimed at promoting diversity](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/02\/27\/us\/politics\/scouting-america-dei-pentagon-hegseth.html) in order to maintain support from the Department of Defense.\n***\n**How We Report on the Trump Administration**\n\nHundreds of readers asked about our coverage of the president. Times editors and reporters [responded to some of the most common questions](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/03\/06\/insider\/how-the-new-york-times-reports-on-trump.html).\n\n## Related Content\n### [The Covid-19 Pandemic](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/news-event\/coronavirus)\n- [C.D.C.’s New Acting Director Draws Unexpected Praise From Agency Staff](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/02\/26\/health\/cdc-bhattacharya-vaccinations-measles.html)\n  \n  ![Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, the director of the National Institutes of Health, is also serving as the acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.](https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2026\/02\/18\/multimedia\/26hs-cdc\/26hs-cdc-thumbLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale)\n  \n  Eric Lee\/The New York Times\n- [Trump Administration Tells States It Aims to ‘Reimagine’ Jobless Benefits](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/02\/24\/us\/politics\/trump-unemployment-benefits-fraud.html)\n  \n  ![President Trump’s efforts to make broad changes to unemployment insurance have raised concerns among groups that support the aid.](https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2026\/02\/24\/multimedia\/24dc-trump-jobs-01-clhb\/24dc-trump-jobs-01-clhb-thumbLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale)\n  \n  Tierney L. Cross\/The New York Times\n- [China’s ‘King of Banned Films’ Wants to Change the Subject](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/02\/20\/world\/asia\/lou-ye-china-film-director.html)\n  \n  Andrea Verdelli for The New York Times\n\n### [More in Politics](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/section\/politics)\n- [Arkansas Governor Seeks to Oust Republican Foes Over a Prison](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/02\/26\/us\/politics\/arkansas-primary-sarah-huckabee-sanders-prison.html)\n  \n  ![A nondescript gate marks the entrance to land purchased for a 3,000-bed prison in Arkansas that has divided Republicans ahead of Tuesday’s primaries.](https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2026\/02\/25\/multimedia\/25nat-arkansas-prison-1-jcgh\/25nat-arkansas-prison-1-jcgh-square640.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale)\n- [For Trump, Military Strike in Iran Could Serve Symbolic Purpose](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/02\/26\/us\/politics\/trump-iran-strike.html)\n  \n  ![American fighter jets on the aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford off the coast of Greece. The U.S. military is amassing firepower in the region near Iran.](https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2026\/02\/25\/multimedia\/25dc-trump-iran-01-mpzv\/25dc-trump-iran-01-mpzv-square640.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale)\n  \n  Stelios Misinas\/Reuters\n- [Could the Supreme Court’s Voting Rights Act Decision Affect the Midterms?](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/02\/28\/us\/politics\/supreme-court-voting-rights-act-midterms.html)\n  \n  ![](https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2026\/02\/25\/multimedia\/2026-02-04-vra-states-calendar-index\/2026-02-04-vra-states-calendar-index-square640-v4.png?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale)\n  \n  The New York Times\n- [Justice Thomas Bemoans Incivility as Security Prompts Cancellation of In-Person Speech](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/02\/27\/us\/politics\/supreme-court-thomas-security.html)\n  \n  ![Justice Clarence Thomas speaking in Washington in September. His planned in-person appearance at an event this week changed after a security threat, he said.](https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2026\/02\/27\/multimedia\/27dc-thomas-hqtf\/27dc-thomas-hqtf-square640.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale)\n  \n  Tierney L. Cross\/The New York Times\n\n### Editors’ Picks\n- [What Was It Like to Work at Calvin Klein in the ’90s? 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Why Some Say That’s a Good Thing.](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/02\/27\/us\/politics\/us-birthrate-decline-women.html)\n  \n  ![](https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2026\/02\/25\/multimedia\/25nat-birth-rate-01-fplj\/25nat-birth-rate-01-fplj-square640.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale&width=350)\n  \n  Lindsay D'Addato for The New York Times\n- [‘Avalanche!’: Survivors Recount the Tragedy at Perry’s Peak](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2026\/02\/28\/us\/tahoe-avalanche-survivors.html)\n  \n  ![](https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2026\/02\/26\/multimedia\/2026-02-23-lake-tahoe-avalanche-reconstruct-index\/2026-02-23-lake-tahoe-avalanche-reconstruct-index-square640-v8.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale&width=350)\n  \n  The New York Times\n- [Kash Patel’s Girlfriend Seeks Fame and Fortune, Escorted by an F.B.I. SWAT Team](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/02\/28\/us\/politics\/kash-patel-girlfriend.html)\n  \n  ![Alexis Wilkins with Kash Patel as he is sworn in as F.B.I. director at the White House in February 2025.](https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2026\/02\/06\/multimedia\/00DC-ALEXIS-01-whjv\/00DC-ALEXIS-01-whjv-square640.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale&width=350)\n  \n  Kenny Holston\/The New York Times\n- [How a Call From Trump Ignited a Bitter Feud Between Two U.S. Allies](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/02\/27\/world\/middleeast\/saudi-arabia-united-arab-emirates-feud-trump-call.html)\n  \n  ![President Trump and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia at an investment forum in Washington in November.](https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2026\/02\/26\/multimedia\/26int-uae-trump-1-hbcl\/26int-uae-trump-1-hbcl-square640-v2.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale&width=350)\n  \n  Haiyun Jiang\/The New York Times\n- [Neil Sedaka, Singing Craftsman of Memorable Pop Songs, Dies at 86](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/02\/27\/arts\/music\/neil-sedaka-dead.html)\n  \n  ![Neil Sedaka performing onstage in London in 1977. He intersected in his career with a remarkably diverse array of musicians. ](https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2026\/03\/01\/obituaries\/00Sedaka-print1\/00Sedaka-square640.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale&width=350)\n  \n  Michael Putland\/Getty Images\n- [Los Angeles Schools Chief Is Placed on Leave Following F.B.I. Raid](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/02\/27\/us\/lausd-superintendent-alberto-carvalho-fbi.html)\n  \n  ![Alberto Carvalho has led the Los Angeles district since 2022.](https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2026\/02\/27\/multimedia\/27nat-hfo-lausd-out-kctf\/27nat-hfo-lausd-out-kctf-square640.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale&width=350)\n  \n  Philip Cheung for The New York Times\n- [Opinion: I Grew Up Unvaccinated. Now I’m an Immunologist.](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/02\/27\/opinion\/growing-up-unvaccinated.html)\n  \n  ![](https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2026\/03\/01\/opinion\/01Marnick\/27Marnick-square640.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale&width=350)\n  \n  Vanessa Woods\n\nAdvertisement\n\n[SKIP ADVERTISEMENT](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/03\/18\/us\/politics\/china-virus.html#after-bottom)\n\n## Site Index\n[Go to Home Page »](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/)\n\nNews\n\n- [Home Page](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/)\n- [U.S.](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/section\/us)\n- [World](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/section\/world)\n- [Politics](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/section\/politics)\n- [New York](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/section\/nyregion)\n- [Education](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/section\/education)\n- [Sports](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/section\/sports)\n- [Business](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/section\/business)\n- [Tech](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/section\/technology)\n- 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But experts warned that the term could result in xenophobia.\n\n![](https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2020\/03\/18\/us\/politics\/18dc-virus-name-sub\/merlin_170687655_2692c96d-4da0-4bde-b416-ee767f9a1c33-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale)\n\nSince the beginning of the outbreak, President Trump and high-ranking administration officials have sought to pinpoint blame for the spread of the virus on China.Credit...Doug Mills\/The New York Times\n\nPublished March 18, 2020Updated March 18, 2021\n\nWASHINGTON — President Trump on Wednesday defended his increasingly frequent practice of calling [the coronavirus](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/news-event\/coronavirus) the “[Chinese Virus](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2021\/03\/18\/us\/politics\/asian-politicians-racism.html),” ignoring a growing chorus of criticism that it is racist and anti-Chinese.\n\n“It’s not racist at all,” Mr. Trump said, explaining his rationale. “It comes from China, that’s why.”\n\nBut the term has angered Chinese officials and a wide range of critics, and China experts say labeling the virus that way will only ratchet up tensions between the two countries, while resulting in the kind of xenophobia that American leaders should discourage. Asian-Americans [have reported](https:\/\/twitter.com\/JiayangFan\/status\/1240111033550766080) incidents of racial slurs and physical abuse because of the erroneous perception that China is the cause of the virus.\n\n“The use of this term is not only corrosive vis-à-vis a global audience, including here at home, it is also fueling a narrative in [China](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/08\/23\/world\/asia\/china-coronavirus-normal-life.html) about a broader American hatred and fear of not just the Chinese Communist Party but of China and Chinese people in general,” said Scott Kennedy, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.\n\nAt the White House briefing on Tuesday, Mr. Trump told reporters that he was attaching “China” to the name of the virus to combat a disinformation campaign promoted by Beijing officials that the American military was the source of the outbreak.\n\n“I didn’t appreciate the fact that China was saying that our military gave it to them,” Mr. Trump said. “I think saying that our military gave it to them creates a stigma.”\n\nThen in [two](https:\/\/twitter.com\/realDonaldTrump\/status\/1240226752447873027?s=20) [tweets](https:\/\/twitter.com\/realDonaldTrump\/status\/1240234698053431305?s=20) on Wednesday morning, he pointedly referred to the “Chinese Virus.” When he was asked about the term during another appearance at the daily White House coronavirus briefing later in the day, he insisted that he was simply pointing out a fact: that the illness was first detected in China.\n\nPublic health officials have tried to avoid names that might result in discriminatory behavior against places or ethnic groups since releasing [more stringent guidelines](https:\/\/www.who.int\/mediacentre\/news\/notes\/2015\/naming-new-diseases\/en\/) for naming viruses in 2015. But after the briefing, the White House [on Twitter](https:\/\/twitter.com\/WhiteHouse\/status\/1240345890159824901?s=20) criticized what it called “the media’s fake outrage,” pointing to other illnesses that had been named after places, including the Ebola virus and the West Nile virus.\n\nMr. Kennedy said that past language used by Mr. Trump and his administration had eliminated any benefit of the doubt. “Given the Trump administration’s long record of statements and actions on immigration, immigrants and issues of race,” he said, “use of this term can’t but be interpreted as xenophobic and tinged with racist overtones.”\n\nAt Wednesday’s briefing, a reporter also asked the president what he thought of an unnamed White House official referring to the coronavirus as the “Kung Flu.” Mr. Trump skirted that question before asserting that the Chinese “probably would agree” with the coronavirus as the “Chinese” virus, though Chinese officials have made it clear they do not.\n\nMedical historians and public health experts — including some in Mr. Trump’s administration — have emphasized that pandemics have no ethnicity and stressed that associating them with an ethnic group can lead to discrimination.\n\nBut since the beginning of the outbreak in Wuhan, Mr. Trump has repeatedly signaled in his public remarks that he viewed the virus as a foreign threat, and has repeatedly highlighted his early decision to close American borders to Chinese travelers.\n\n“We closed it down to China, the source, very, very early,” Mr. Trump said to reporters on Tuesday. “Far earlier than even the great professionals wanted to do. And I think, in the end, that’s going to be — that will have saved a tremendous number of lives.”\n\nBut Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, said Mr. Trump’s travel measures fell far short of a comprehensive approach that would include testing and quarantines, and overall were “too little, too late.”\n\nThe virus most likely emerged in China in November or December, and it is clear that some travelers from China were already spreading the virus within the United States in January, before the restrictions went into place at the beginning of February, Mr. Huang said.\n\nStill, since the beginning of the outbreak, Mr. Trump and high-ranking administration officials have sought to pinpoint blame for the spread of the virus on China, and Beijing has responded in kind. The finger-pointing over which country has done less to contain the disease has caused tensions between the two nations almost daily.\n\nOn Tuesday, the Chinese government announced that it would be [expelling journalists from major news outlets](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/03\/17\/business\/media\/china-expels-american-journalists.html), including The New York Times, in a response to the Trump administration’s decision to limit the number of Chinese citizens working in the United States for five propaganda outlets.\n\nAnd last week, Zhao Lijian, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, [shared the conspiracy theory](https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2020-03-13\/chinese-official-pushes-conspiracy-theory-u-s-army-behind-virus) that the United States was behind the virus. “It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan,” he said on Twitter. “Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe us an explanation!”\n\nThe darker turn in U.S.-China relations has spilled out into public spats and private mistrust. While both countries have said that the trade deal [they signed in January](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/01\/15\/business\/economy\/china-trade-deal.html) remains on track, American officials have blamed China for mishandling the coronavirus epidemic, as well as for withholding exports of face masks and other protective medical equipment.\n\nAnd within the Trump administration, some officials who are China hawks have privately discussed a theory that the virus emerged not from a food market in Wuhan, as many news media reports have said, but from a nearby Chinese government laboratory, where virologists were carrying out research.\n\nThat [theory has been discussed](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/02\/17\/business\/media\/coronavirus-tom-cotton-china.html) on Fox News by Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, an ally of Mr. Trump’s.\n\nCharlie Woo, the chief executive of Megatoys and the public policy committee chairman of the Committee of 100, an organization of prominent Chinese-Americans, said the administration’s language was dividing the public during a national emergency.\n\n“This crisis requires science, facts and clear language, not fear-mongering, finger-pointing and xenophobia by our public servants,” Mr. Woo said in a statement. “We face a global pandemic that calls for a truly global, unified response. Attempts to ascribe the virus to one culture, ethnicity or country can only hinder this effort, alienating people who could instead collaborate and support one another.”\n\nCharacteristically defiant in the face of criticism, the president’s allies joined him on Wednesday in defending his references to a Chinese virus.\n\nKellyanne Conway, the counselor to the president, said that Mr. Trump was just trying to be accurate. “I think what the president is saying is that is where it was first started,” she told reporters in the White House driveway.\n\nSenator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, [said on Twitter](https:\/\/twitter.com\/ChuckGrassley\/status\/1240245244169420800) that “I don’t understand why China gets upset bc we refer to the virus that originated there the ‘Chinese virus’ Spain never got upset when we referred to the Spanish flu in 1918&1919.”\n\nThe phrase “Spanish flu” is itself a misnomer: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say experts are [still not sure where](https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/flu\/pandemic-resources\/1918-pandemic-h1n1.html) the disease originated.\n\nThe language has also extended to the president’s re-election effort. In a message emailed to supporters and posted on its website, the Trump-Pence 2020 campaign fueled the push to blame Beijing for the spread of the virus. It also accused former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic front-runner, of “siding with the Chinese.”\n\n“America is under attack — not just by an invisible virus, but by the Chinese,” said the campaign appeal, which was dated Wednesday.\n\nIt added: “What is Joe Biden up to as all this is happening? Siding with the Chinese and attacking the presidential candidate China fears most: Donald Trump.”\n\nPerhaps no administration official has been as consistent in connecting the virus to China as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. In a [press briefing on Tuesday](https:\/\/www.state.gov\/secretary-michael-r-pompeo-remarks-to-the-press-6\/), Mr. Pompeo six times referred to the coronavirus as the “Wuhan virus,” after the city that was the epicenter of the virus in China.\n\nEven as he said that “now is not the time for recrimination,” Mr. Pompeo also again accused China of initially playing down the threat posed by what is now a pandemic.\n\n“We know this much: We know that the first government to be aware of the Wuhan virus was the Chinese government,” Mr. Pompeo said. “That imposes a special responsibility to raise the flag, to say: ‘We have a problem. This is different and unique and presents risk.’ And it took an awful long time for the world to become aware of this risk that was sitting there, residing inside of China.”\n\n“The Chinese Communist Party had a responsibility to do this — not only for Americans and Italians and South Koreans and Iranians who are now suffering, but for their own people as well,” Mr. Pompeo said.\n\nMr. Pompeo said the expulsions were just the latest example of how China wants to “deny the world the capacity to know what’s really going on inside of their country.”\n\nGovernment officials in China have publicly cast doubt on whether the coronavirus originated in Wuhan, as health authorities believe.\n\nBut a senior State Department official said on Wednesday that President Xi Jinping of China in early January repeatedly referred to the coronavirus as the “Wuhan” illness, and that many Chinese citizens still do.\n\nEdward Wong contributed reporting.\n\n[Katie Rogers](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/by\/katie-rogers) is a White House correspondent in the Washington bureau.\n\n[Lara Jakes](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/by\/lara-jakes) is a diplomatic correspondent based in the Washington bureau of The New York Times. Over the past two decades, Ms. Jakes has reported and edited from more than 40 countries and covered war and sectarian fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, the West Bank and Northern Ireland.\n\n[Ana Swanson](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/by\/ana-swanson) is based in the Washington bureau and covers trade and international economics for The New York Times. She previously worked at The Washington Post, where she wrote about trade, the Federal Reserve and the economy.\n\nA version of this article appears in print on March 19, 2020, Section A, Page 11 of the New York edition with the headline: Trump Calls It the ‘Chinese Virus.’ Critics Say That’s Racist and Provocative.. [Order Reprints](https:\/\/nytimes.wrightsmedia.com\/) \\| [Today’s Paper](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/section\/todayspaper) \\| [Subscribe](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/subscriptions\/Multiproduct\/lp8HYKU.html?campaignId=48JQY)\n\n## Related Content\n[The Covid-19 Pandemic](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/news-event\/coronavirus)\n\n- ![Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, the director of the National Institutes of Health, is also serving as the acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.](https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2026\/02\/18\/multimedia\/26hs-cdc\/26hs-cdc-thumbLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale)\n  \n  Eric Lee\/The New York Times\n- ![President Trump’s efforts to make broad changes to unemployment insurance have raised concerns among groups that support the aid.](https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2026\/02\/24\/multimedia\/24dc-trump-jobs-01-clhb\/24dc-trump-jobs-01-clhb-thumbLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale)\n  \n  Tierney L. Cross\/The New York Times\n- Andrea Verdelli for The New York Times\n\n[More in Politics](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/section\/politics)\n\n- ![A nondescript gate marks the entrance to land purchased for a 3,000-bed prison in Arkansas that has divided Republicans ahead of Tuesday’s primaries.](https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2026\/02\/25\/multimedia\/25nat-arkansas-prison-1-jcgh\/25nat-arkansas-prison-1-jcgh-square640.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale)\n- ![American fighter jets on the aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford off the coast of Greece. The U.S. military is amassing firepower in the region near Iran.](https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2026\/02\/25\/multimedia\/25dc-trump-iran-01-mpzv\/25dc-trump-iran-01-mpzv-square640.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale)\n  \n  Stelios Misinas\/Reuters\n- ![](https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2026\/02\/25\/multimedia\/2026-02-04-vra-states-calendar-index\/2026-02-04-vra-states-calendar-index-square640-v4.png?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale)\n  \n  The New York Times\n- ![Justice Clarence Thomas speaking in Washington in September. His planned in-person appearance at an event this week changed after a security threat, he said.](https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2026\/02\/27\/multimedia\/27dc-thomas-hqtf\/27dc-thomas-hqtf-square640.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale)\n  \n  Tierney L. 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Boilerpipe Text	Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT “It’s not racist at all,” the president said. But experts warned that the term could result in xenophobia. Since the beginning of the outbreak, President Trump and high-ranking administration officials have sought to pinpoint blame for the spread of the virus on China. Credit... Doug Mills/The New York Times Published March 18, 2020 Updated March 18, 2021 WASHINGTON — President Trump on Wednesday defended his increasingly frequent practice of calling the coronavirus the “ Chinese Virus ,” ignoring a growing chorus of criticism that it is racist and anti-Chinese. “It’s not racist at all,” Mr. Trump said, explaining his rationale. “It comes from China, that’s why.” But the term has angered Chinese officials and a wide range of critics, and China experts say labeling the virus that way will only ratchet up tensions between the two countries, while resulting in the kind of xenophobia that American leaders should discourage. Asian-Americans have reported incidents of racial slurs and physical abuse because of the erroneous perception that China is the cause of the virus. “The use of this term is not only corrosive vis-à-vis a global audience, including here at home, it is also fueling a narrative in China about a broader American hatred and fear of not just the Chinese Communist Party but of China and Chinese people in general,” said Scott Kennedy, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. At the White House briefing on Tuesday, Mr. Trump told reporters that he was attaching “China” to the name of the virus to combat a disinformation campaign promoted by Beijing officials that the American military was the source of the outbreak. “I didn’t appreciate the fact that China was saying that our military gave it to them,” Mr. Trump said. “I think saying that our military gave it to them creates a stigma.” Then in two tweets on Wednesday morning, he pointedly referred to the “Chinese Virus.” When he was asked about the term during another appearance at the daily White House coronavirus briefing later in the day, he insisted that he was simply pointing out a fact: that the illness was first detected in China. Public health officials have tried to avoid names that might result in discriminatory behavior against places or ethnic groups since releasing more stringent guidelines for naming viruses in 2015. But after the briefing, the White House on Twitter criticized what it called “the media’s fake outrage,” pointing to other illnesses that had been named after places, including the Ebola virus and the West Nile virus. Mr. Kennedy said that past language used by Mr. Trump and his administration had eliminated any benefit of the doubt. “Given the Trump administration’s long record of statements and actions on immigration, immigrants and issues of race,” he said, “use of this term can’t but be interpreted as xenophobic and tinged with racist overtones.” At Wednesday’s briefing, a reporter also asked the president what he thought of an unnamed White House official referring to the coronavirus as the “Kung Flu.” Mr. Trump skirted that question before asserting that the Chinese “probably would agree” with the coronavirus as the “Chinese” virus, though Chinese officials have made it clear they do not. Medical historians and public health experts — including some in Mr. Trump’s administration — have emphasized that pandemics have no ethnicity and stressed that associating them with an ethnic group can lead to discrimination. But since the beginning of the outbreak in Wuhan, Mr. Trump has repeatedly signaled in his public remarks that he viewed the virus as a foreign threat, and has repeatedly highlighted his early decision to close American borders to Chinese travelers. “We closed it down to China, the source, very, very early,” Mr. Trump said to reporters on Tuesday. “Far earlier than even the great professionals wanted to do. And I think, in the end, that’s going to be — that will have saved a tremendous number of lives.” But Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, said Mr. Trump’s travel measures fell far short of a comprehensive approach that would include testing and quarantines, and overall were “too little, too late.” The virus most likely emerged in China in November or December, and it is clear that some travelers from China were already spreading the virus within the United States in January, before the restrictions went into place at the beginning of February, Mr. Huang said. Still, since the beginning of the outbreak, Mr. Trump and high-ranking administration officials have sought to pinpoint blame for the spread of the virus on China, and Beijing has responded in kind. The finger-pointing over which country has done less to contain the disease has caused tensions between the two nations almost daily. On Tuesday, the Chinese government announced that it would be expelling journalists from major news outlets , including The New York Times, in a response to the Trump administration’s decision to limit the number of Chinese citizens working in the United States for five propaganda outlets. And last week, Zhao Lijian, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, shared the conspiracy theory that the United States was behind the virus. “It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan,” he said on Twitter. “Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe us an explanation!” The darker turn in U.S.-China relations has spilled out into public spats and private mistrust. While both countries have said that the trade deal they signed in January remains on track, American officials have blamed China for mishandling the coronavirus epidemic, as well as for withholding exports of face masks and other protective medical equipment. And within the Trump administration, some officials who are China hawks have privately discussed a theory that the virus emerged not from a food market in Wuhan, as many news media reports have said, but from a nearby Chinese government laboratory, where virologists were carrying out research. That theory has been discussed on Fox News by Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, an ally of Mr. Trump’s. Charlie Woo, the chief executive of Megatoys and the public policy committee chairman of the Committee of 100, an organization of prominent Chinese-Americans, said the administration’s language was dividing the public during a national emergency. “This crisis requires science, facts and clear language, not fear-mongering, finger-pointing and xenophobia by our public servants,” Mr. Woo said in a statement. “We face a global pandemic that calls for a truly global, unified response. Attempts to ascribe the virus to one culture, ethnicity or country can only hinder this effort, alienating people who could instead collaborate and support one another.” Characteristically defiant in the face of criticism, the president’s allies joined him on Wednesday in defending his references to a Chinese virus. Kellyanne Conway, the counselor to the president, said that Mr. Trump was just trying to be accurate. “I think what the president is saying is that is where it was first started,” she told reporters in the White House driveway. Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, said on Twitter that “I don’t understand why China gets upset bc we refer to the virus that originated there the ‘Chinese virus’ Spain never got upset when we referred to the Spanish flu in 1918&1919.” The phrase “Spanish flu” is itself a misnomer: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say experts are still not sure where the disease originated. The language has also extended to the president’s re-election effort. In a message emailed to supporters and posted on its website, the Trump-Pence 2020 campaign fueled the push to blame Beijing for the spread of the virus. It also accused former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic front-runner, of “siding with the Chinese.” “America is under attack — not just by an invisible virus, but by the Chinese,” said the campaign appeal, which was dated Wednesday. It added: “What is Joe Biden up to as all this is happening? Siding with the Chinese and attacking the presidential candidate China fears most: Donald Trump.” Perhaps no administration official has been as consistent in connecting the virus to China as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. In a press briefing on Tuesday , Mr. Pompeo six times referred to the coronavirus as the “Wuhan virus,” after the city that was the epicenter of the virus in China. Even as he said that “now is not the time for recrimination,” Mr. Pompeo also again accused China of initially playing down the threat posed by what is now a pandemic. “We know this much: We know that the first government to be aware of the Wuhan virus was the Chinese government,” Mr. Pompeo said. “That imposes a special responsibility to raise the flag, to say: ‘We have a problem. This is different and unique and presents risk.’ And it took an awful long time for the world to become aware of this risk that was sitting there, residing inside of China.” “The Chinese Communist Party had a responsibility to do this — not only for Americans and Italians and South Koreans and Iranians who are now suffering, but for their own people as well,” Mr. Pompeo said. Mr. Pompeo said the expulsions were just the latest example of how China wants to “deny the world the capacity to know what’s really going on inside of their country.” Government officials in China have publicly cast doubt on whether the coronavirus originated in Wuhan, as health authorities believe. But a senior State Department official said on Wednesday that President Xi Jinping of China in early January repeatedly referred to the coronavirus as the “Wuhan” illness, and that many Chinese citizens still do. Edward Wong contributed reporting. Katie Rogers is a White House correspondent in the Washington bureau. Lara Jakes is a diplomatic correspondent based in the Washington bureau of The New York Times. Over the past two decades, Ms. Jakes has reported and edited from more than 40 countries and covered war and sectarian fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, the West Bank and Northern Ireland. Ana Swanson is based in the Washington bureau and covers trade and international economics for The New York Times. She previously worked at The Washington Post, where she wrote about trade, the Federal Reserve and the economy. A version of this article appears in print on March 19, 2020 , Section A, Page 11 of the New York edition with the headline: Trump Calls It the ‘Chinese Virus.’ Critics Say That’s Racist and Provocative. . Order Reprints \| Today’s Paper \| Subscribe Related Content The Covid-19 Pandemic Eric Lee/The New York Times Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times Andrea Verdelli for The New York Times More in Politics Stelios Misinas/Reuters The New York Times Tierney L. 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Markdown	[Skip to content](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/18/us/politics/china-virus.html#site-content)[Skip to site index](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/18/us/politics/china-virus.html#site-index) Search & Section Navigation Section Navigation Search [Politics](https://www.nytimes.com/section/politics) [Log in](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2Fsubscription%2Fonboarding-offer%3FcampaignId%3D7JFJX%26EXIT_URI%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.nytimes.com%252F2020%252F03%252F18%252Fus%252Fpolitics%252Fchina-virus.html&asset=masthead) Saturday, February 28, 2026 [Today’s Paper](https://www.nytimes.com/section/todayspaper) Trump Administration - live[U.S. Strikes Iran](https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/02/28/world/iran-strikes-trump) Feb. 28, 2026, 9:10 p.m. ET1m ago - [OpenAI-Pentagon Agreement](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/27/technology/openai-agreement-pentagon-ai.html) - [Trump’s Midterm Message](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/27/us/politics/trump-midterms-state-of-the-union.html) - [Trump in Epstein Files](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/25/us/politics/trump-epstein-files.html) - [Tariff Tracker](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/business/economy/trump-tariff-tracker.html) - [Approval Rating](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/polls/donald-trump-approval-rating-polls.html) Advertisement [SKIP ADVERTISEMENT](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/18/us/politics/china-virus.html#after-top) Supported by [SKIP ADVERTISEMENT](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/18/us/politics/china-virus.html#after-sponsor) # Trump Defends Using ‘Chinese Virus’ Label, Ignoring Growing Criticism “It’s not racist at all,” the president said. But experts warned that the term could result in xenophobia. - Share full article ![](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/03/18/us/politics/18dc-virus-name-sub/merlin_170687655_2692c96d-4da0-4bde-b416-ee767f9a1c33-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale) Since the beginning of the outbreak, President Trump and high-ranking administration officials have sought to pinpoint blame for the spread of the virus on China.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times [![Katie Rogers](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/06/12/multimedia/author-katie-rogers/author-katie-rogers-thumbLarge-v2.png)](https://www.nytimes.com/by/katie-rogers)[![Lara Jakes](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2019/07/25/reader-center/author-lara-jakes/author-lara-jakes-thumbLarge.png)](https://www.nytimes.com/by/lara-jakes)[![Ana Swanson](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/12/10/multimedia/author-ana-swanson/author-ana-swanson-thumbLarge-v2.png)](https://www.nytimes.com/by/ana-swanson) By [Katie Rogers](https://www.nytimes.com/by/katie-rogers)[Lara Jakes](https://www.nytimes.com/by/lara-jakes) and [Ana Swanson](https://www.nytimes.com/by/ana-swanson) Published March 18, 2020Updated March 18, 2021 [阅读简体中文版](https://cn.nytimes.com/usa/20200319/china-virus/ "Read in Simplified Chinese")[閱讀繁體中文版](https://cn.nytimes.com/usa/20200319/china-virus/zh-hant/ "Read in Traditional Chinese") WASHINGTON — President Trump on Wednesday defended his increasingly frequent practice of calling [the coronavirus](https://www.nytimes.com/news-event/coronavirus) the “[Chinese Virus](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/18/us/politics/asian-politicians-racism.html),” ignoring a growing chorus of criticism that it is racist and anti-Chinese. “It’s not racist at all,” Mr. Trump said, explaining his rationale. “It comes from China, that’s why.” But the term has angered Chinese officials and a wide range of critics, and China experts say labeling the virus that way will only ratchet up tensions between the two countries, while resulting in the kind of xenophobia that American leaders should discourage. Asian-Americans [have reported](https://twitter.com/JiayangFan/status/1240111033550766080) incidents of racial slurs and physical abuse because of the erroneous perception that China is the cause of the virus. “The use of this term is not only corrosive vis-à-vis a global audience, including here at home, it is also fueling a narrative in [China](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/23/world/asia/china-coronavirus-normal-life.html) about a broader American hatred and fear of not just the Chinese Communist Party but of China and Chinese people in general,” said Scott Kennedy, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. At the White House briefing on Tuesday, Mr. Trump told reporters that he was attaching “China” to the name of the virus to combat a disinformation campaign promoted by Beijing officials that the American military was the source of the outbreak. “I didn’t appreciate the fact that China was saying that our military gave it to them,” Mr. Trump said. “I think saying that our military gave it to them creates a stigma.” Then in [two](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1240226752447873027?s=20) [tweets](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1240234698053431305?s=20) on Wednesday morning, he pointedly referred to the “Chinese Virus.” When he was asked about the term during another appearance at the daily White House coronavirus briefing later in the day, he insisted that he was simply pointing out a fact: that the illness was first detected in China. Public health officials have tried to avoid names that might result in discriminatory behavior against places or ethnic groups since releasing [more stringent guidelines](https://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/notes/2015/naming-new-diseases/en/) for naming viruses in 2015. But after the briefing, the White House [on Twitter](https://twitter.com/WhiteHouse/status/1240345890159824901?s=20) criticized what it called “the media’s fake outrage,” pointing to other illnesses that had been named after places, including the Ebola virus and the West Nile virus. Mr. Kennedy said that past language used by Mr. Trump and his administration had eliminated any benefit of the doubt. “Given the Trump administration’s long record of statements and actions on immigration, immigrants and issues of race,” he said, “use of this term can’t but be interpreted as xenophobic and tinged with racist overtones.” ## Editors’ Picks [![](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2026/02/27/multimedia/27ST-CALVIN-KLEIN-TIKTOK-show-zftv/27ST-CALVIN-KLEIN-TIKTOK-show-zftv-thumbLarge.jpg)What Was It Like to Work at Calvin Klein in the ’90s? Ask Them.](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/27/style/love-story-carolyn-bessette-kennedy-calvin-klein.html) [![](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2026/02/28/magazine/28mag-ethicist/28mag-ethicist-thumbLarge.jpg)My Aging Mother Won’t Stop Driving. Should I Take Away Her Keys?](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/28/magazine/aging-mother-driving-ethics.html) [![](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2026/02/23/well/WELL-PITT-PSYCHOSIS1/WELL-PITT-PSYCHOSIS1-thumbLarge.jpg)‘The Pitt’ Is Showing Us the Complicated Reality of Psychosis](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/26/well/mind/the-pitt-psychosis.html) Advertisement [SKIP ADVERTISEMENT](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/18/us/politics/china-virus.html#after-pp_edpick) At Wednesday’s briefing, a reporter also asked the president what he thought of an unnamed White House official referring to the coronavirus as the “Kung Flu.” Mr. Trump skirted that question before asserting that the Chinese “probably would agree” with the coronavirus as the “Chinese” virus, though Chinese officials have made it clear they do not. Medical historians and public health experts — including some in Mr. Trump’s administration — have emphasized that pandemics have no ethnicity and stressed that associating them with an ethnic group can lead to discrimination. But since the beginning of the outbreak in Wuhan, Mr. Trump has repeatedly signaled in his public remarks that he viewed the virus as a foreign threat, and has repeatedly highlighted his early decision to close American borders to Chinese travelers. “We closed it down to China, the source, very, very early,” Mr. Trump said to reporters on Tuesday. “Far earlier than even the great professionals wanted to do. And I think, in the end, that’s going to be — that will have saved a tremendous number of lives.” But Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, said Mr. Trump’s travel measures fell far short of a comprehensive approach that would include testing and quarantines, and overall were “too little, too late.” The virus most likely emerged in China in November or December, and it is clear that some travelers from China were already spreading the virus within the United States in January, before the restrictions went into place at the beginning of February, Mr. Huang said. Still, since the beginning of the outbreak, Mr. Trump and high-ranking administration officials have sought to pinpoint blame for the spread of the virus on China, and Beijing has responded in kind. The finger-pointing over which country has done less to contain the disease has caused tensions between the two nations almost daily. On Tuesday, the Chinese government announced that it would be [expelling journalists from major news outlets](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/business/media/china-expels-american-journalists.html), including The New York Times, in a response to the Trump administration’s decision to limit the number of Chinese citizens working in the United States for five propaganda outlets. And last week, Zhao Lijian, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, [shared the conspiracy theory](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-13/chinese-official-pushes-conspiracy-theory-u-s-army-behind-virus) that the United States was behind the virus. “It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan,” he said on Twitter. “Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe us an explanation!” The darker turn in U.S.-China relations has spilled out into public spats and private mistrust. While both countries have said that the trade deal [they signed in January](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/15/business/economy/china-trade-deal.html) remains on track, American officials have blamed China for mishandling the coronavirus epidemic, as well as for withholding exports of face masks and other protective medical equipment. And within the Trump administration, some officials who are China hawks have privately discussed a theory that the virus emerged not from a food market in Wuhan, as many news media reports have said, but from a nearby Chinese government laboratory, where virologists were carrying out research. That [theory has been discussed](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/17/business/media/coronavirus-tom-cotton-china.html) on Fox News by Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, an ally of Mr. Trump’s. Charlie Woo, the chief executive of Megatoys and the public policy committee chairman of the Committee of 100, an organization of prominent Chinese-Americans, said the administration’s language was dividing the public during a national emergency. “This crisis requires science, facts and clear language, not fear-mongering, finger-pointing and xenophobia by our public servants,” Mr. Woo said in a statement. “We face a global pandemic that calls for a truly global, unified response. Attempts to ascribe the virus to one culture, ethnicity or country can only hinder this effort, alienating people who could instead collaborate and support one another.” Characteristically defiant in the face of criticism, the president’s allies joined him on Wednesday in defending his references to a Chinese virus. Kellyanne Conway, the counselor to the president, said that Mr. Trump was just trying to be accurate. “I think what the president is saying is that is where it was first started,” she told reporters in the White House driveway. Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, [said on Twitter](https://twitter.com/ChuckGrassley/status/1240245244169420800) that “I don’t understand why China gets upset bc we refer to the virus that originated there the ‘Chinese virus’ Spain never got upset when we referred to the Spanish flu in 1918&1919.” The phrase “Spanish flu” is itself a misnomer: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say experts are [still not sure where](https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-pandemic-h1n1.html) the disease originated. The language has also extended to the president’s re-election effort. In a message emailed to supporters and posted on its website, the Trump-Pence 2020 campaign fueled the push to blame Beijing for the spread of the virus. It also accused former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic front-runner, of “siding with the Chinese.” “America is under attack — not just by an invisible virus, but by the Chinese,” said the campaign appeal, which was dated Wednesday. It added: “What is Joe Biden up to as all this is happening? Siding with the Chinese and attacking the presidential candidate China fears most: Donald Trump.” Perhaps no administration official has been as consistent in connecting the virus to China as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. In a [press briefing on Tuesday](https://www.state.gov/secretary-michael-r-pompeo-remarks-to-the-press-6/), Mr. Pompeo six times referred to the coronavirus as the “Wuhan virus,” after the city that was the epicenter of the virus in China. Even as he said that “now is not the time for recrimination,” Mr. Pompeo also again accused China of initially playing down the threat posed by what is now a pandemic. “We know this much: We know that the first government to be aware of the Wuhan virus was the Chinese government,” Mr. Pompeo said. “That imposes a special responsibility to raise the flag, to say: ‘We have a problem. This is different and unique and presents risk.’ And it took an awful long time for the world to become aware of this risk that was sitting there, residing inside of China.” “The Chinese Communist Party had a responsibility to do this — not only for Americans and Italians and South Koreans and Iranians who are now suffering, but for their own people as well,” Mr. Pompeo said. Mr. Pompeo said the expulsions were just the latest example of how China wants to “deny the world the capacity to know what’s really going on inside of their country.” Government officials in China have publicly cast doubt on whether the coronavirus originated in Wuhan, as health authorities believe. But a senior State Department official said on Wednesday that President Xi Jinping of China in early January repeatedly referred to the coronavirus as the “Wuhan” illness, and that many Chinese citizens still do. Edward Wong contributed reporting. More on the U.S., China and the Coronavirus [![]()What the Ebola Crisis Can Teach Us About Quarantines March 19, 2020](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/19/us/coronavirus-quarantines-ebola.html) [![]()China Announces That It Will Expel American Journalists March 17, 2020](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/business/media/china-expels-american-journalists.html) [![]()For Trump, a New Crisis and a Familiar Response: It’s China’s Fault, and Europe’s March 12, 2020](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/12/us/politics/trump-coronavirus-europe-allies.html) [![]()Politicians’ Use of ‘Wuhan Virus’ Starts a Debate Health Experts Wanted to Avoid March 10, 2020](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/10/us/politics/wuhan-virus.html) [![]()Trump Administration Restricts Entry Into U.S. From China Jan. 31, 2020](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/31/business/china-travel-coronavirus.html) [Katie Rogers](https://www.nytimes.com/by/katie-rogers) is a White House correspondent in the Washington bureau. [Lara Jakes](https://www.nytimes.com/by/lara-jakes) is a diplomatic correspondent based in the Washington bureau of The New York Times. Over the past two decades, Ms. Jakes has reported and edited from more than 40 countries and covered war and sectarian fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, the West Bank and Northern Ireland. [Ana Swanson](https://www.nytimes.com/by/ana-swanson) is based in the Washington bureau and covers trade and international economics for The New York Times. She previously worked at The Washington Post, where she wrote about trade, the Federal Reserve and the economy. A version of this article appears in print on March 19, 2020, Section A, Page 11 of the New York edition with the headline: Trump Calls It the ‘Chinese Virus.’ Critics Say That’s Racist and Provocative.. [Order Reprints](https://nytimes.wrightsmedia.com/) \\| [Today’s Paper](https://www.nytimes.com/section/todayspaper) \\| [Subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscriptions/Multiproduct/lp8HYKU.html?campaignId=48JQY) See more on: [Donald Trump](https://www.nytimes.com/spotlight/donald-trump), [U.S. Politics](https://www.nytimes.com/section/politics), [State Department](https://www.nytimes.com/topic/state-department) - Share full article * ## The Latest on the Trump Administration * - Pentagon Cutting Academic Ties: The Defense Department [has decided to sever relationships](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/28/us/politics/pentagon-universities-think-tanks.html) with nearly two dozen top universities and think tanks as part of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s campaign against what he calls anti-American values and “wokeness.” - Boat Strikes: The Pentagon’s new inspector general [has frozen a proposal](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/28/us/politics/trump-boat-strikes-pentagon.html) to evaluate military targeting in the Trump administration’s strikes on boats suspected of smuggling cocaine from South America, The New York Times has learned. - Taiwan Arms Sale: The Trump administration has delayed announcing [a package of arms sales to Taiwan](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/27/us/politics/trump-taiwan-arms-sale.html) valued at billions of dollars to avoid upsetting Xi Jinping, China’s leader, ahead of President Trump’s planned trip to Beijing in April, U.S. officials said. - Kash Patel: Trump’s F.B.I. director [is facing growing questions](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/28/us/politics/kash-patel-girlfriend.html) inside the administration over his and his girlfriend’s personal use of government jets and F.B.I. agents. - Scouting America: Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, [announced that the organization will discontinue programs and policies aimed at promoting diversity](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/27/us/politics/scouting-america-dei-pentagon-hegseth.html) in order to maintain support from the Department of Defense. * How We Report on the Trump Administration** Hundreds of readers asked about our coverage of the president. 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Readable Markdown	Advertisement [SKIP ADVERTISEMENT](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/18/us/politics/china-virus.html#after-top) “It’s not racist at all,” the president said. But experts warned that the term could result in xenophobia. ![](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/03/18/us/politics/18dc-virus-name-sub/merlin_170687655_2692c96d-4da0-4bde-b416-ee767f9a1c33-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale) Since the beginning of the outbreak, President Trump and high-ranking administration officials have sought to pinpoint blame for the spread of the virus on China.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times Published March 18, 2020Updated March 18, 2021 WASHINGTON — President Trump on Wednesday defended his increasingly frequent practice of calling [the coronavirus](https://www.nytimes.com/news-event/coronavirus) the “[Chinese Virus](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/18/us/politics/asian-politicians-racism.html),” ignoring a growing chorus of criticism that it is racist and anti-Chinese. “It’s not racist at all,” Mr. Trump said, explaining his rationale. “It comes from China, that’s why.” But the term has angered Chinese officials and a wide range of critics, and China experts say labeling the virus that way will only ratchet up tensions between the two countries, while resulting in the kind of xenophobia that American leaders should discourage. Asian-Americans [have reported](https://twitter.com/JiayangFan/status/1240111033550766080) incidents of racial slurs and physical abuse because of the erroneous perception that China is the cause of the virus. “The use of this term is not only corrosive vis-à-vis a global audience, including here at home, it is also fueling a narrative in [China](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/23/world/asia/china-coronavirus-normal-life.html) about a broader American hatred and fear of not just the Chinese Communist Party but of China and Chinese people in general,” said Scott Kennedy, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. At the White House briefing on Tuesday, Mr. Trump told reporters that he was attaching “China” to the name of the virus to combat a disinformation campaign promoted by Beijing officials that the American military was the source of the outbreak. “I didn’t appreciate the fact that China was saying that our military gave it to them,” Mr. Trump said. “I think saying that our military gave it to them creates a stigma.” Then in [two](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1240226752447873027?s=20) [tweets](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1240234698053431305?s=20) on Wednesday morning, he pointedly referred to the “Chinese Virus.” When he was asked about the term during another appearance at the daily White House coronavirus briefing later in the day, he insisted that he was simply pointing out a fact: that the illness was first detected in China. Public health officials have tried to avoid names that might result in discriminatory behavior against places or ethnic groups since releasing [more stringent guidelines](https://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/notes/2015/naming-new-diseases/en/) for naming viruses in 2015. But after the briefing, the White House [on Twitter](https://twitter.com/WhiteHouse/status/1240345890159824901?s=20) criticized what it called “the media’s fake outrage,” pointing to other illnesses that had been named after places, including the Ebola virus and the West Nile virus. Mr. Kennedy said that past language used by Mr. Trump and his administration had eliminated any benefit of the doubt. “Given the Trump administration’s long record of statements and actions on immigration, immigrants and issues of race,” he said, “use of this term can’t but be interpreted as xenophobic and tinged with racist overtones.” At Wednesday’s briefing, a reporter also asked the president what he thought of an unnamed White House official referring to the coronavirus as the “Kung Flu.” Mr. Trump skirted that question before asserting that the Chinese “probably would agree” with the coronavirus as the “Chinese” virus, though Chinese officials have made it clear they do not. Medical historians and public health experts — including some in Mr. Trump’s administration — have emphasized that pandemics have no ethnicity and stressed that associating them with an ethnic group can lead to discrimination. But since the beginning of the outbreak in Wuhan, Mr. Trump has repeatedly signaled in his public remarks that he viewed the virus as a foreign threat, and has repeatedly highlighted his early decision to close American borders to Chinese travelers. “We closed it down to China, the source, very, very early,” Mr. Trump said to reporters on Tuesday. “Far earlier than even the great professionals wanted to do. And I think, in the end, that’s going to be — that will have saved a tremendous number of lives.” But Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, said Mr. Trump’s travel measures fell far short of a comprehensive approach that would include testing and quarantines, and overall were “too little, too late.” The virus most likely emerged in China in November or December, and it is clear that some travelers from China were already spreading the virus within the United States in January, before the restrictions went into place at the beginning of February, Mr. Huang said. Still, since the beginning of the outbreak, Mr. Trump and high-ranking administration officials have sought to pinpoint blame for the spread of the virus on China, and Beijing has responded in kind. The finger-pointing over which country has done less to contain the disease has caused tensions between the two nations almost daily. On Tuesday, the Chinese government announced that it would be [expelling journalists from major news outlets](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/business/media/china-expels-american-journalists.html), including The New York Times, in a response to the Trump administration’s decision to limit the number of Chinese citizens working in the United States for five propaganda outlets. And last week, Zhao Lijian, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, [shared the conspiracy theory](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-13/chinese-official-pushes-conspiracy-theory-u-s-army-behind-virus) that the United States was behind the virus. “It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan,” he said on Twitter. “Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe us an explanation!” The darker turn in U.S.-China relations has spilled out into public spats and private mistrust. While both countries have said that the trade deal [they signed in January](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/15/business/economy/china-trade-deal.html) remains on track, American officials have blamed China for mishandling the coronavirus epidemic, as well as for withholding exports of face masks and other protective medical equipment. And within the Trump administration, some officials who are China hawks have privately discussed a theory that the virus emerged not from a food market in Wuhan, as many news media reports have said, but from a nearby Chinese government laboratory, where virologists were carrying out research. That [theory has been discussed](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/17/business/media/coronavirus-tom-cotton-china.html) on Fox News by Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, an ally of Mr. Trump’s. Charlie Woo, the chief executive of Megatoys and the public policy committee chairman of the Committee of 100, an organization of prominent Chinese-Americans, said the administration’s language was dividing the public during a national emergency. “This crisis requires science, facts and clear language, not fear-mongering, finger-pointing and xenophobia by our public servants,” Mr. Woo said in a statement. “We face a global pandemic that calls for a truly global, unified response. Attempts to ascribe the virus to one culture, ethnicity or country can only hinder this effort, alienating people who could instead collaborate and support one another.” Characteristically defiant in the face of criticism, the president’s allies joined him on Wednesday in defending his references to a Chinese virus. Kellyanne Conway, the counselor to the president, said that Mr. Trump was just trying to be accurate. “I think what the president is saying is that is where it was first started,” she told reporters in the White House driveway. Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, [said on Twitter](https://twitter.com/ChuckGrassley/status/1240245244169420800) that “I don’t understand why China gets upset bc we refer to the virus that originated there the ‘Chinese virus’ Spain never got upset when we referred to the Spanish flu in 1918&1919.” The phrase “Spanish flu” is itself a misnomer: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say experts are [still not sure where](https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-pandemic-h1n1.html) the disease originated. The language has also extended to the president’s re-election effort. In a message emailed to supporters and posted on its website, the Trump-Pence 2020 campaign fueled the push to blame Beijing for the spread of the virus. It also accused former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic front-runner, of “siding with the Chinese.” “America is under attack — not just by an invisible virus, but by the Chinese,” said the campaign appeal, which was dated Wednesday. It added: “What is Joe Biden up to as all this is happening? Siding with the Chinese and attacking the presidential candidate China fears most: Donald Trump.” Perhaps no administration official has been as consistent in connecting the virus to China as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. In a [press briefing on Tuesday](https://www.state.gov/secretary-michael-r-pompeo-remarks-to-the-press-6/), Mr. Pompeo six times referred to the coronavirus as the “Wuhan virus,” after the city that was the epicenter of the virus in China. Even as he said that “now is not the time for recrimination,” Mr. Pompeo also again accused China of initially playing down the threat posed by what is now a pandemic. “We know this much: We know that the first government to be aware of the Wuhan virus was the Chinese government,” Mr. Pompeo said. “That imposes a special responsibility to raise the flag, to say: ‘We have a problem. This is different and unique and presents risk.’ And it took an awful long time for the world to become aware of this risk that was sitting there, residing inside of China.” “The Chinese Communist Party had a responsibility to do this — not only for Americans and Italians and South Koreans and Iranians who are now suffering, but for their own people as well,” Mr. Pompeo said. Mr. Pompeo said the expulsions were just the latest example of how China wants to “deny the world the capacity to know what’s really going on inside of their country.” Government officials in China have publicly cast doubt on whether the coronavirus originated in Wuhan, as health authorities believe. But a senior State Department official said on Wednesday that President Xi Jinping of China in early January repeatedly referred to the coronavirus as the “Wuhan” illness, and that many Chinese citizens still do. Edward Wong contributed reporting. [Katie Rogers](https://www.nytimes.com/by/katie-rogers) is a White House correspondent in the Washington bureau. [Lara Jakes](https://www.nytimes.com/by/lara-jakes) is a diplomatic correspondent based in the Washington bureau of The New York Times. Over the past two decades, Ms. Jakes has reported and edited from more than 40 countries and covered war and sectarian fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, the West Bank and Northern Ireland. [Ana Swanson](https://www.nytimes.com/by/ana-swanson) is based in the Washington bureau and covers trade and international economics for The New York Times. She previously worked at The Washington Post, where she wrote about trade, the Federal Reserve and the economy. A version of this article appears in print on March 19, 2020, Section A, Page 11 of the New York edition with the headline: Trump Calls It the ‘Chinese Virus.’ Critics Say That’s Racist and Provocative.. 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