How are relations between Trump
‘s White House and Prime Minister Conte ? State Mike Pompeo warned China: the time will come to do the math and evaluate how the whole world has responded, he said, probably referring not only to the contagion but also to Beijing’s propaganda.
“The disinformation campaign they are running is designed to offload the blame. Now is not the time to complain. Now is the time to resolve this global pandemic and work to reduce the risks for Americans and people around the world. My team just got off the phone with our ambassador to Italy. The remarkable work our team is doing there to help the Italian people would make every American proud. We are doing it all over the world.
There will come a day when we are going to evaluate the response of the whole world. We know that the first government to be aware of the Wuhan Virus was the Chinese government. And this imposes a particular responsibility to sound the alarm: ‘We have a problem, this is different and unique and presents risks’. And it took an incredibly long time for the world to be aware of this risk that was there, inside China. We will do the math when the time is right. Each nation has a responsibility to share all its data, all its information in a timely and accurate manner … The Communist Party of China had a responsibility to do so not only for the Americans, Italians, South Koreans and Iranians who are now suffering, but even for his own people “.
However, the American reaction seems to have as its target not only the Chinese government, but also the Italian one. President Trump expressed solidarity with Italy by posting a video of the Frecce tricolori on Twitter, but signs of US irritation are arriving at the Italian government in these hours.
Days ago Breitbart, a site that openly supports Donald Trump, commenting on the launch of the “Silk Road of health” from a telephone conversation between Prime Minister Conte and President Xi Jinping, had literally mocked gullible Italy, which drinks the ” Wuhan model “.
On Thursday, a major media such as Fox News, also on good terms with the Trump administration, published an article with the emblematic title, “Worse than a war: how the coronavirus has spread in Italy to a breaking point” , in which, among other things, he claims that US intelligence would have warned the Italian government of the pandemic coming from China, which, however, would have underestimated the alarm. Fox News cites a “Rome-based security expert, who requested to remain anonymous because he was not authorized to speak on the record”, according to which “intelligence reports alerted the government of the potential pandemic only days after it infiltration into China late last year. But weeks passed before any serious action was taken in Rome ”. According to the source, the idea was that it was “a Chinese problem, which would not come here”. Approach apparently common to many European countries, if not all.
Both Italian and US intelligence sources contacted yesterday afternoon by the Adnkronos agency have strongly denied. But true or false, that through the Aise our government had been alerted, it does not matter: the torpedo from Washington (or Rome-based
) was launched and hit the target.
In the evening, the Farnesina announced an interview between Secretary Pompeo and Minister Di Maio, without adding anything else. Cordiale Pompeo on Twitter:
Pleased to speak with Italian Foreign Minister @luigidimaio today to discuss the strength of our alliance in these trying times. The people of #Italy are an example to the world as they face the #coronavirus with resolve and resilience.
– Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) March 19, 2020
Rome is warned.
(Extract of an article published on atlanticoquotidiano.it; here the full version)
