Leading Republicans want to send China the bill for coronavirus pandemic's costs
Leading Republicans are demanding that China be made to pay financially for what they allege was a coverup of the lethal coronavirus outbreak that ultimately brought the U.S. economy to a near halt, erasing more than 26 million American jobs and costing the federal government trillions of dollars in emergency spending.
Key lawmakers want President Trump to cancel the $1 trillion-plus U.S. debt to China and to push companies to relocate their medical product supply chains to the United States. Missouri’s Republican attorney general this week sued Chinese authorities in federal court, seeking to recover billions of dollars in spending on pandemic care and economic relief. Mississippi’s attorney general, also a Republican, said she intends to do the same.
Several of the proposed punitive measures face significant hurdles and, if enacted, would be likely to involve steep costs for the United States, apart from whatever benefits might be gained. But the Republican campaign aims to capitalize on growing public distrust of China and to draw voters’ attention to Beijing’s alleged responsibility for the deepening recession, rather than criticism of the president’s pandemic response. Congress in the past two months has approved nearly $3 trillion in new spending to combat fallout from the virus, a figure that does not include the financial toll for states and cities.
Among the loudest China critics is Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), a close White House ally. In recent television appearances, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee has called for canceling the U.S. debt with China, slapping a “pandemic tariff” on Chinese goods and imposing unspecified sanctions on Chinese officials.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/04/24/republican-coronavirus-china-xi/
They're so cute when they're angry
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