The US State Department will allocate another $225 million in assistance to boost efforts to combat COVID-19, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement.
"Today I can confirm that we are prepared to commit an additional $225 million in health, humanitarian and economic assistance to further boost response efforts worldwide", Pompeo said at a briefing. "We do this because we are good and generous people".
The funding comes on top of roughly $274 million already provided by the US to 64 countries amid the pandemic.
"Right now, given the great need for PPE (personal protection equipment) in our own country, our focus will be on keeping critical medical items in the United States until demand is met here", Pompeo told the State Department news conference.
On 6 April, White House Economic Adviser Larry Kudlow said that the Trump administration had rolled out $38 billion in loans to small US businesses from its $2 trillion coronavirus (COVID-19) stimulus package, just over 10 percent of what was allocated to the group under the pandemic relief.
Earlier the same day, Kudlow told CNBC that the administration was considering a coronavirus bond issue to help the US economy in its “war” against the COVID-19 pandemic. He said this in response to a suggestion from the network that the government issue an $8 trillion, 30-year bond with a coupon rate of 1.5 percent.
The United States has more than 368,500 confirmed COVID-19 cases with more than 11,000 deaths due to the disease, according to the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Centre.
