WASHINGTON, April 19. /TASS/. US President Donald Trump said that China could face consequences if it was "knowingly responsible" for the coronavirus pandemic, Reuters reported.

"If it was a mistake, a mistake is a mistake. But if they were knowingly responsible, yeah, I mean, then sure there should be consequences," Trump told reporters at a daily briefing.

According to Trump, the relationship between Washington and Beijing before the start of the pandemic was constructive.

"We had just made a trade deal, where China is going to have 250 billion [dollars] products from the farmers. <> The relationship was good when we were signing that signed that," the US president said.

"The question was would you be angry with China. The answer might be <> "yes," but it depends if it was it a mistake that they got it out of control [the spread of the coronavirus outside China - TASS] or was it done deliberately," Trump replied.

Earlier US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said he expects the Chinese authorities to let in foreign specialists to the laboratory in Wuhan, the coronavirus could start to spread from, according to a number of American media,

On April 16, China’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian stressed that that there is no evidence showing the virus was made in a lab. According to him, many renowned medical specialists in the world had also debunked the "lab leakage" theory as not science-based at all. He was commenting to the publication by the Fox News that the novel coronavirus was leaked from a lab in Wuhan.