US Lawmakers Introduce Bill to Force China to Pay COVID Reparations

China’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic has been spotty from the start.

The novel strain of coronavirus that causes COVID-19 first appeared in Wuhan, China, with the government in Beijing insisting that the illness was transferred from bats to humans at a “wet market” in that city.  Just three miles away, however, is a virology lab that has specialized in work on this particular strain of coronavirus, leaving many to wonder if that proximity is purely coincidence or not.

To further throw doubt on China’s official COVID response was the grand disparity between the data that Beijing released to the world regarding their outbreak, and the information gathered by scientists in Europe once the disease arrived in places like Italy and Spain.

This led to a number of US lawmakers publicly calling for reparations to be paid by China to the rest of the world – a bold idea at the time.

Now, as Americans continue to suffer from the effects of the global pandemic, a number of elected officials are making a legislative push for just that sort of thing. 

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) and GOP U.S. Senate frontrunner, former U.S. ambassador to Japan Bill Hagerty, laid out a detailed vision to hold China accountable for the coronavirus pandemic and stop the Chinese Communist Party from continuing to build global influence all while bringing manufacturing especially of critical goods back to the United States.

And this sentiment wasn’t just lip service either…

When asked how he intends to hold China accountable for the pandemic, Cotton said he and his colleagues like Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN)—who has also now endorsed Hagerty and appeared alongside him at earlier events on Friday—have introduced legislation to force the Chinese Communist Party to literally pay for the cost of the pandemic. This is legislation and an effort Hagerty is expected to support, assuming he is elected to the U.S. Senate in November.

“I’ll start by saying that we should literally make China pay for the horror that they have inflicted on millions of Americans,” Cotton said. “That’s why I’ve proposed legislation with Sen. Blackburn and other senators to allow Americans harmed by the Wuhan coronavirus to sue Chinese officials in federal court. They should literally have to pay for the harm they have inflicted upon our citizens and their families and at our workplaces and colleges. Now, there are other ways to make China pay, as well, in terms of bringing our jobs and factories back to the United States. I’ll let Bill address that, because it’s the centerpiece of his campaign.”

The news comes as cases of coronavirus continue to surge within the United States, particularly in tourism-heavy states such as Florida and California.