Some Trump Officials Take Harder Actions on China During Pandemic

Since the coronavirus spread from a metropolis on the Yangtze River across the globe, hard-liners in both Washington and Beijing have accelerated efforts to decouple elements of the relationship.

WASHINGTON — Some top Trump administration officials are moving to take a more aggressive stand against China on economic, diplomatic and scientific issues at the heart of the relationship between the world’s two superpowers, further fraying ties that have reached their lowest point in decades.

White House aides this week have prodded President Trump to issue an executive order that would block a government pension fund from investing in Chinese companies, officials said — a move that could upend capital flows across the Pacific. Mr. Trump announced on Friday that he was restricting the use of electrical equipment in the domestic grid system with links to “a foreign adversary” — an unspoken reference to China.

The administration is cutting off grants that would help support virology laboratories in Wuhan, China, the city where the coronavirus outbreak began, and is looking into scientific collaborations undertaken there by the University of Texas.

Senior aides, led by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, have asked intelligence agencies to continue looking for any evidence to support an unsubstantiated theory that the pandemic might be the result of an accidental lab leak, even though agency analysts have said they most likely will not find proof.