President Donald Trump said he will speak by phone with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping later Thursday as the United States overtook China as the country with the most coronavirus cases.
Trump told a press conference he would be speaking to Xi at 9:00 pm (0100 GMT Friday). With 82,404 cases of infection, the United States has now surpassed virus hotspots China and Italy, according to a tracker run by Johns Hopkins University.
However Trump cast doubt on this, saying "you don't know what the numbers are in China." Trump said he and Xi would be discussing the global pandemic and insisted they have a "very good relationship." However, he touched on a nasty row that has erupted in both countries over blame for the disease.