La Casa Blanca eligió este viernes tensar aún más la cuerda de la relación con Beijing y acusó a China por la pandemia de coronavirus. «El verdadero origen del Covid», acusó el gobierno de Donald Trump al gigante asiático, mediante la construcción y publicación de una página web llamada «LabLeak» (algo así como «fuga del laboratorio»), la cual aduce trasladar las investigaciones del Congreso y otras instituciones estadounidenses.

«Si existieran pruebas de un origen natural, ya habrían aparecido. Pero no es el caso», acusó el gobierno norteamericano este viernes mediante su nueva página, un subdominio del sitio web de la Casa Blanca que se llama «Lab Leak, el verdadero origen del Covid».

Se refiere a China, que además de ser el primer país en que se reportaron casos de coronavirus a fines de 2019, este año se ve envuelta en una guerra comercial con los Estados Unidos, luego de que Donald Trump anunciara que incrementará los aranceles comerciales para productos hechos en el gigante asiático. Beijing, su contraparte, anunció lo mismo posteriormente y Trump volvió a retrucar.

La página que la Casa Blanca instituyó este viernes es, en realidad, una actualización del anterior apartado «covid.gov», que el gobierno estadounidense usaba hasta el 10 de abril pasado para dispensar distinta información sobre el coronavirus, cómo prevenirlo y cómo tratarlo.

Pero no sólo la página publicada por la Casa Blanca acusa a China por el origen, sino que rechaza el uso de barbijos y la implementación de medidas de distanciamiento social como políticas relevantes en materia sanitaria durante el transcurso de la pandemia.

Y cimenta su teoría en base a cinco argumentos a favor de la teoría de una fuga del laboratorio. Uno de ellos es que Wuhan, la ciudad donde se registró el primer caso conocido del virus, también alberga el «principal laboratorio de investigación del (virus respiratorio) SARS» de China y tiene un historial por investigar con «niveles inadecuados de bioseguridad». Es en esa línea que argumenta que «si existieran pruebas de un origen natural del virus, ya habrían aparecido. Pero no es el caso».

La hipótesis de una fuga de un laboratorio chino ha ganado cierta popularidad no sólo en la sociedad estadounidense, sino también en agencias gubernamentales de ese país, como el FBI, la CIA o el Departamento de Energía, que se han pronunciado a lo largo del transcurso de la pandemia y en la posterioridad en concordancia con esa hipótesis.

Con base en eso es que en la página web en cuestión, la Casa Blanca cita un informe de más de 200 páginas de extensión acerca de las investigaciones sobre el Covid, que provienen de esas y otras instituciones del gobierno norteamericano.

La nueva escalada de Trump contra China condice con el recrudecimiento de la guerra comercial entre ambos países, luego de que el gobierno estadounidense aumentara a más de 100 % los impuestos sobre ciertos productos made in China. Pero no sólo la tensión responde a motivos estrictamente comerciales, sino también a cuestiones geopolíticas.

Sin ir más lejos, Scott Bessent, secretario del Tesoro de Estados Unidos, se metió de lleno en esa contienda y desde Buenos Aires, donde afirmó que el gobierno de Trump quiere evitar que América Latina se convierta en la «nueva África», continente en el que el gobierno chino cobra más y más importancia cada año.

Además de comparar la situación argentina con la de Africa, Bessent vino especialmente informar que su país deseaba que los argentinos pusieran fin a su dependencia del financiamiento chino a través del millonario intercambio de monedas, conocido como swap.

La movida en varios frentes reveló una clara estrategia de armar grupos de aliados para aislar a China. Esta representa un triunfo de la mirada geopolítica de Bessent, el hombre más importante hoy en la guerra arancelaria de Trump, y quien logró pausar las bruscas subas de aranceles para empezar a negociar. Empezaron por Japón, seguirán por los vecinos asiáticos de China, siguen negociando con Canadá y México. Y al gobierno de Javier Milei también le toca un lugar.

Welcome to the Fox News Politics newsletter, with the latest updates on the Trump administration, Capitol Hill and more Fox News politics content.

Here’s what’s happening…

-Gabbard announces RFK files released months after Trump’s order: ‘Light on the truth’

-Top Dem asks Noem how TSA will prevent ‘major disruptions’ as many travelers still lack REAL ID

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The White House released a splitscreen image overnight to underscore the stark contrast between where Republicans and Democrats stand on illegal immigration.

One image featured distraught Angel Mom Patty Morin being comforted by President Trump in the Oval Office. Morin’s daughter, Rachel Morin, was savagely beaten, raped and killed in Maryland by an illegal migrant from El Salvador in 2023. 

The other image showed Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., sitting and talking with deported illegal alien Kilmar Abrego Garcia, 29, in El Salvador…Read more

Abrego Garcia 

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‘LOOKED LIKE A FOOL’: Trump calls Sen. Van Hollen a ‘fool’ after meeting with deported MS-13 suspect in El Salvador

White House

POLL POSITION: How Trump’s approval rating compares to his presidential predecessors

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CROWN OF THORNS: LGBTQ Christians crusade against Trump’s religiously ‘hostile’ policies during Holy Week

A group of LGBTQ+ Christian leaders gathered outside the U.S. Capitol to reject President Donald Trump’s «anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, with one religious leader telling Fox News Digital the Trump administration is «the most hostile administration to religion in recent memory.» (Fox News Digital)

‘BIG HONOR’: Trump announces a conservative media star, a GOP governor, and others for Homeland Security Advisory Council

CENTURY-OLD LAW: When did the US stop keeping up with the Joneses? The maritime law at the crux of US shipbuilding

‘YOU WANT PEOPLE TO BUY’: Trump says US ‘talking to China end may be in sight amid tariff hikes

World Stage

‘NEVER ALONE’: Huckabee visits iconic holy site in Israel, delivers Trump’s prayer for peace

HAMAS CASH CRISIS: Hamas terror group reportedly buckling under financial strain amid Israeli military gains and growing unrest

Palestinian Hamas militants gather at the site of the handing over of the bodies of four Israeli hostages in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza on February 20, 2025.  (Photo by EYAD BABA/AFP via Getty Images)

‘UNACCEPTABLE’: Chinese firm aiding Houthi attacks on US vessels, as airstrikes kill 74

HOLY WEEK OUTREACH: Pope Francis visits Rome prison during Holy Week

‘MOVE ON’: Rubio says US ready to ‘move on’ within days if no progress on Russia-Ukraine peace deal

Capitol Hill

DEMOCRATS IN DISARRAY: Confidence in Congressional Democrats hits all time low in new poll

The New York Times Editorial Board accused the Democratic Party’ of being in «denial’ over why it lost in 2024.  (Getty Images)

PINK ALERT: Top GOP senator calls out Code Pink, The People’s Forum allegedly pushing CCP propaganda in US

Across America 

UNMASKED: Anti-Israel agitator charged in violent hate crime attack on two Jewish college students

GLOVES ARE OFF: Top GOP lawmaker, Hochul trade barbs amid speculation Trump ally is jumping in gubernatorial race

‘SAFER TODAY’: ICE arrests over 200 illegal aliens in New York City’s ‘most crime-infested neighborhoods’

GATHERING INFO: ICE and DOGE seek sensitive data in crackdown on illegal immigration, waste: report

ICE agents in Los Angeles are frustrated with sanctuary city policies. (Fox News)

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‘WIDE FISSURE’: Federal judge temporarily restricts DOGE access to personalized Social Security data

Get the latest updates on the Trump administration and Congress, exclusive interviews and more on FoxNews.com.

Three tourists were among four people who were killed when a cable car crashed south of Naples, an Italian official said Friday.

A British woman and an Israeli woman were among the three foreign victims identified since the accident on Thursday, said Marco De Rosa, the spokesperson for the mayor of Vico Equense. The fourth victim was the Italian driver of the cable car.

FSU STUDENT RECOUNTS MOMENTS SHOTS RANG OUT

According to initial information, a traction cable snapped and one car crashed after both the upward and a downward-going cable cars came to a halt as they traversed Monte Faito, in the town of Castellammare di Stabia.

A fifth person, who is also believed to be a foreign tourist, was seriously injured and is being treated in hospital in Naples, officials said. Sixteen passengers were helped out of the other cable car that was stuck mid-air near the foot of the mountain following the incident.

The accident happened just a week after the cable car, popular for its views of Mount Vesuvius and the Bay of Naples, reopened for the season.

Local prosecutors have opened an investigation into possible manslaughter, which will involve an inspection of the cable stations, the pylons, the two cabins and the cable, local officials said Friday,

The emergency services, including Italy’s alpine rescue, more than 50 firefighters, police and civil protection personnel, worked into the evening in severe weather conditions, which made the rescue operations difficult.

«The traction cable broke. The emergency brake downstream worked, but evidently not the one on the cabin that was entering the station,» Luigi Vicinanza, the mayor of Castellammare di Stabia, said on Thursday. He added that there had been regular safety checks on the cable car line, which runs 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) from the town to the top of the mountain.

SCHOOL BUS FLIPS ON SOUTH CAROLINA HIGHWAY

Rescue workers recover a body at the scene of a cable car crash in Italy. (AP Photo/Salvatore Laporta)

The company running the service, the EAV public transport firm, stressed that the seasonal cable car had reopened with all the required safety conditions.

«The reopening had taken place a week ago after three months of tests every day, day and night,» said EAV President Umberto De Gregorio. «This is something inexplicable.»

De Gregorio said technical experts believed there was no connection between the severe weather and the cause of the crash. «There is an automatic system. When the wind exceeds a certain level, the cable car stops automatically,» he said.

The Monte Faito cable car opened in 1952. Four people died in 1960 when a pylon broke.

Italy has recorded two similar fatal accidents involving cable cars in recent years.

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A cable car crash in May 2021 in northern Italy killed 14 people, including six Israelis, among them a family of four. In 1998, a low-flying U.S. military jet cut through the cable of a ski lift in Cavalese, in the Dolomites, killing 20 people.