Did Trump Praise China for Its ‘Transparency’ on COVID-19?







The president's opinion of China's handling of the coronavirus pandemic has changed over time.







































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['U.S. President Donald Trump praised China for its "transparency" in handling the coronavirus outbreak, then later criticized the World Health Organization for doing the same.', 'In mid-April 2020, social media users shared a comment made by U.S. President Donald Trump at an April 14 press briefing and contrasted it with a previous tweet of Trump’s in an effort to highlight the president’s flip-flopping narrative on the Chinese government’s handling of the COVID-19 coronavirus disease outbreak in late 2019 and early 2020.', 'During the April press briefing, amid strong criticism of his own administration’s response to the pandemic, Trump announced he was planning to halt U.S. funding for the World Health Organization (WHO), strongly criticizing it for taking China’s assurances about its handling of the coronavirus outbreak “at face value” and for praising China’s “so-called transparency” in that regard.', 'In light of that, CNN White House Correspondent Kaitlan Collins pressed Trump about a January 2020 tweet in which he, too, praised the Chinese government’s “transparency” in handling the crisis at that early juncture.', 'Their full exchange can be watched on video here around the 00:55 mark, but the moment in question went as follows:', 'COLLINS: […] You’re criticizing the WHO for praising China for being transparent, but you also praised China for being transparent in January.', 'TRUMP: I don’t talk about China’s transparency.', 'COLLINS: In January, there was a tweet.', 'TRUMP: Well, you know, if I’m so good to China, how come I was the only person — the only leader of a country that closed our borders tightly against China?', 'Social media users took that last comment and contrasted it with the earlier Trump remark Collins was referring to, which came in a tweet posted on Jan. 24, 2020, in which Trump did, in fact, praise the Chinese government for its transparency. Here is an example of one such tweet with the user’s name cropped out for privacy purposes.\n\nBecause Trump did make the transparency comment about China in regards to the coronavirus pandemic, we rate this claim “True.”', 'WhiteHouse.gov.\xa0“Remarks by President Trump in Press Briefing.”\n\xa0\xa014 April 2020.', 'Eder, Steve, et al.\xa0“430,000 People Have Traveled From China to U.S. Since Coronavirus Surfaced.”\n\xa0\xa0The New York Times.\xa04 April 2020.', 'BBC.\xa0“Coronavirus: US to Halt Funding to WHO, Says Trump.”\n\xa0\xa015 April 2020.', 'Rumors about antifa plotting violence have coincided with the month of July and Gettysburg before.', 'A complete story is rarely told in a headline.', 'Social media rumors that two memorials in New York were vandalized proved misleading.', 'In August 2019, a 23-year-old unarmed Black man died after an encounter with police officers in Aurora, Colorado.', 'A chaotic scene in St. Louis sparked outrage, memes, and confusion.', 'Socialite Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested on sex abuse charges connected to convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.', 'The white supremacist group made frequent use of the slogan more recently embraced by President Donald Trump, though they did not, as some claim, invent it.', "The question of past arrests often surfaces among people who want to rationalize police officers' actions when Black men are killed in custody.", 'You can claim anything if you remove the barrier of evidence.', 'Rumors about antifa plotting violence have coincided with the month of July and Gettysburg before.', '© 1995 - 2020 by Snopes Media Group Inc.', 'This material may not be reproduced without permission.', 'Snopes and the Snopes.com logo are registered service marks of Snopes.com']
Did Trump Praise China for Its 'Transparency' on COVID-19?