US President Donald Trump said Saturday that he wished China would have told him earlier about the novel coronavirus, CNN reported.

"I wish they could have told us earlier about what was going on inside," Trump said during a briefing on the federal government's coronavirus response. "We didn't know about it until it started coming out publicly."

Trump added that China "was very secretive and that's unfortunate."

He went on to criticize what he said was China's waiting to tell the US.

"They knew they had a problem earlier,” he said. “I wish they could have said that."