Iran Press/America The United States has decided to postpone a meeting with leaders of Southeast Asian countries it had planned to host on March 14 due to worries about the coronavirus outbreak, two US officials familiar with the matter said on Friday 28 February.
US President Donald Trump had invited leaders of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to meet in Las Vegas after he did not attend a summit with the group in Bangkok in November.
The cancelation comes as mounting uncertainty over the coronavirus epidemic helped trigger a massive stock market selloff that led to Wall Street’s worst week since the 2008 financial crisis. The White House has sought with increasing urgency to quell concerns that the U.S. is unprepared for the potential spread of the virus in the United States.
The White House had not announced whether Trump planned to personally attend the Las Vegas summit. But U.S. presidents often attend ASEAN’s annual summit, and it would be unusual to skip it during a year when the United States was hosting it.
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