After Donald Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, the US Central Intelligence Agency released the results of an investigation that concluded that the COVID-19 pandemic that swept the world and paralyzed the global economy and transportation was most likely caused not by nature, but by a scientific laboratory in the People’s Republic of China.

On March 8, 2025, a Missouri court found the Chinese government liable for covering up the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and ordered them to pay more than $24 billion, which US officials intend to obtain by seizing Chinese assets.

In the decision, Missouri Judge Stephen Limbaugh said that “China misled the world about the dangers and extent of the COVID-19 pandemic and engaged in monopolistic practices in hoarding protective equipment.” In other words, China, Judge Limbaugh concluded, impeded the rapid response to the pandemic in the United States, making it impossible to purchase sufficient protective equipment for health workers.

Was Trump right? The source of the coronavirus is a Wuhan lab?

This decision was rejected by the Chinese government, which believes that the lawsuit has no factual or legal basis or international precedent, and therefore official Beijing does not and will not accept it.

In response, the White House launches a website on April 18, 2025, dedicated to the origins of COVID-19, which clearly states that the spread of the coronavirus was the result of a leak of the virus from a scientific lab in China. The Donald Trump administration concludes that the infection of people began from a lab in Wuhan, and not from some accidental infection of “patient zero” who ate wild animal meat.

The site criticizes the 46th US President Joe Biden, senior US Health and Human Services official Anthony Fauci, the World Health Organization (WHO), and the adoption of measures by the US leadership such as social distancing, mandatory mask wearing, and quarantine.

Then the Chinese government published a white paper titled “Prevention, Control, and Origin Tracing of COVID-19: China’s Actions and Position,” which noted that the coronavirus disease was recorded in the United States long before the incident in Wuhan.

In the white paper, the Chinese government claims that China provided relevant information to the WHO and the international community in a timely manner, helped the global fight against the pandemic, and a study conducted by Chinese scientists jointly with specialists from the World Health Organization concluded that the virus leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan was “extremely unlikely.”

According to the Chinese version, “there is substantial evidence that COVID19 may have appeared in the United States earlier than officially announced and earlier than the outbreak in China.”

Xi Jinping responds to the US with a “White Paper”
Also sensational is the report of the NIH “All of Us” research program, which tested 24,079 blood samples collected from January 2 to March 18, 2020, from participants in 50 US states and found nine samples containing antibodies to COVID-19. These results show that as early as December 2019, that is, before the first official cases were reported, the virus was already circulating at low levels in the US. Chinese officials note that between 2006 and 2013, the US experienced at least 1,500 serious laboratory incidents involving coronaviruses and other highly dangerous pathogens associated with diseases such as SARS, MERS, Ebola, anthrax, smallpox, and bird flu.

All these events indicate that COVID-19 could have appeared earlier than the US officially announced it, and earlier than the first outbreak was registered in China.

Barin Kayaoglu, an independent analyst and columnist for Al-Monitor, noted in an interview with haqqin.az that the COVID conflict is part of Donald Trump’s trade war with China.

Barin Kayaoglu comments for haqqin.az
“Apparently, Trump, in accordance with the Missouri court decision, intends to somehow confiscate $24 billion from China,” Kayaoglu believes. – And also to use the pandemic story to “wind up” more trade tariffs on China. Trump’s economic policy runs counter to his promises during the election campaign. Since the beginning of 2025, food prices in the US have increased by more than 2.5 percent. The main reason is the increase in import duties. Donald Trump’s protectionist trade policies and tariff manipulations will lead to higher prices for imported goods and higher inflation in the coming months.

Trump’s top priority now is to improve the country’s economy, so $24.47 billion would be very welcome. The only question is how Trump will extract these billions from the Chinese. He could appeal to international arbitration, but between the USA and China have no agreement on resolving financial issues in this instance. Another option for recovery is to confiscate Chinese assets in America. But this could be an unprecedented blow to the American stock market, after which foreign investors will simply flee the United States. Not to mention that any financial cataclysms in the United States negatively affect the global financial system.

It should be taken into account that China also has tools capable of undermining the US economy. This concerns the liquidation of huge Chinese investments in American treasury bonds. In short, the “covid conflict” between the US and China could have unpredictable consequences for the whole world.”