President Donald Trump is facing widespread condemnation after referring to coronavirus as the "Chinese Virus" immediately after calling on Americans to "band together" in the face of the pandemic.

Echoing the words of right-wing commentators who have been adamant on labeling COVID-19 based on where the virus originated, in Wuhan, China, Trump said in a tweet on Monday that his administration would be "powerfully supporting" industries that are "particularly affected by the Chinese Virus."

"We will be stronger than ever before!" the president exclaimed.

The president's statement came just over two hours after he tweeted out a message asking Americans to "band together and support your neighbors."

The way the president suggested Americans do that was by "not hoarding unnecessary amounts of food and essentials."

"TOGETHER we will stay STRONG and overcome this challenge!" he said.

Many were quick to condemn the president's decision to brand COVID-19 a "Chinese Virus," with Trump being accused, once again, of racism.

Addressing Trump directly, California Rep. Ted Lieu warned the president that "Asian Americans will likely encounter more discrimination because of your tweet below."

"Please stop your unnecessary rhetoric," Lieu wrote. COVID-19, he said, "is now an American virus, an Italian virus, a Spanish virus. We are all impacted & we all need to work together."

Scott Dworkin, the co-founder of The Democratic Coalition also condemned the president's tweet, simply branding it "racist AF."

"Of course he called it 'Chinese Virus'," the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund said in a tweet. "Because he doesn't care that Asians and Asian Americans are subjected to hate violence because of this racist description of #coronavirus."

Meanwhile, China's national English language newspaper, the Global Times, published an article citing experts in China who, it said, accused Trump of branding COVID-19 a "Chinese Virus" to "make American people blame China rather than his administration's horrible reaction to deal with the outbreak" and to "hype racism for covering up his inability to resolve panic in the U.S. stock market."

This is, of course, not the first time that Trump has been condemned for racism over incendiary comments.

Trump
President Donald Trump speaks during a press briefing about Coronavirus in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington, D.C., March 15, 2020. Trump is facing widespread backlash after referring to COVID-19 as 'Chinese Virus'.JIM WATSON/AFP/GETTY

The president has long faced backlash over his descriptions of Mexican immigrants as "rapists" who bring crime and drugs into the country.

He also faced widespread condemnation after allegedly referring to African nations, Haiti, and El Salvador as "shithole countries" in a January 2018 Oval Office meeting on immigration.

Trump was branded racist once again after railing against Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley, and saying they should "go back" to the countries they came from, despite three of the women having been born in the U.S. and Omar being a U.S. citizen who came to the country as a child refugee.

Newsweek has contacted the White House and Trump's campaign team for comment.