Donald Trump asked South Korea for medical equipment to help fight the coronavirus in return for promises to give US approval to Korean companies, the presidential office in Seoul has said.

President Moon Jae-in offered to send the equipment if his country has any spare, his Blue House office said in a statement late on Tuesday.

The offer apparently followed a 23-minute phone call, which it said was arranged at Mr Trump’s urgent request.

The request highlights the very different reactions to Covid-19 the two nations have taken since both discovered their first coronavirus cases on the same day.

South Korea rolled out widespread testing within days, launching an aggressive programme to isolate confirmed cases and trace their contacts.

Following a significant early outbreak it has won praise for slowing the spread of the disease.

So far it has reported 125 deaths, compared to more than 500 in the United States.

The number of new infections per day has been below 100 for 13 consecutive days.

In contrast, the US did little testing initially, and has now been shutting parts of the country en masse, with fast-growing outbreaks in a number of states and thousands of new cases per day.

Mr Trump sought for weeks to play down the threat of the coronavirus, insisting at one point that the 15 confirmed cases in the US would soon be “close to zero”, and saying it would disappear like a “miracle”.

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The revelation that he has apparently asked for help from a foreign country comes against the background of increased calls within the United States for the president to activate the Defense Production Act, which would allow him to force private companies to join the fight against Covid-19 by repurposing their output towards urgent products like hand sanitiser and face masks.

Mr Trump says he has no need to force companies to make medical supplies because so many have volunteered.

Reuters contributed to this article