US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said that it was up to the US Administration now whether the nation will get coronavirus relief before election day.
In an interview with ABC, Pelosi said that the language on testing provisions that affect communities of colour remains one of the points of disagreements with the Trump Administration.
"They took out ... 55% of the language that we had there for testing and tracing. And the tracing part is so important because communities of colour had been disproportionately affected by this", Pelosi said.
Nevertheless, the speaker emphasised her "optimism" about the coronavirus relief deal.
Congress has passed four packages of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act, dispensing roughly $3 trillion to workers, loans and grants for businesses and other aid to qualifying US citizens and residents.
Republicans and Democrats have been locked in a stalemate since on a successive package to the CARES Act, arguing over the size of the next relief deal as millions of Americans risk losing their jobs without further aid.
President Donald Trump has offered a $1.8 trillion package - as opposed to the Democrats’ demand for $2.2 trillion - and accused Pelosi of playing political football ahead of the 3 November election at the expense of people in need. Pelosi has said that a deal should be to the advantage of the American people rather than for Trump’s political expediency.
