Posted on 04/13/2020 4:30:47 AM PDT by gattaca
Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., is calling on China to forgive its share of the U.S. debt, which she says would be a “good solid step” toward "restitution" for the loss of life and economic distress that Beijing's mishandling of coronavirus has caused America.
The virus started in Wuhan, China, and was first reported by Chinese officials in late-December. Some U.S. officials and others suspect China was later to make public the outbreak and under-reported the number of cases.
“We do know that there is a growing opinion among our colleagues that China needs to be, first of all, held to account for what they've done," Blackburn said in an exclusive interview with Just the News. "Secondly, they need to pay for what this has cost in life and livelihood and suffering and what it has cost our economy.”
China holds $1.08 trillion of the U.S. national debt, according to the most recent Treasury Department data. The debt held by the public is $18.2 trillion and the total debt, including intra-governmental holdings, is $24.2 trillion.
“China owns a trillion dollars or holds a trillion of our debt so waiving that would be a good solid step," said Blackburn, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. "There are other things that we can also do to make certain that the message gets across."
Blackburn said that she has spoken with many activists in China who “believe that the Communist Party was fully aware that they had an outbreak on their hands and they hid that for 51 days.”
The Tennessee Republican and member of the Senate Judiciary Committee also said the Chinese government was “slow” to turn over a virus sample to the U.S. government so it could start doing testing and begin working on a vaccine for COVID-19, the disease that the coronavirus creates in those infected.
Video file “There was an ingredient that we needed for research on a possible vaccine, and China said we might not give that to you. So these are all things that point to their awareness that what they were doing was inappropriate,” she said.
Blackburn acknowledged that her proposal to have China forgive U.S. debt, if passed, would still require action from the Treasury Department.
“We haven't talked through exactly what that way forward would be," she said. "But we do know that there are more people that agree that China should be required to make some form of restitution for this."
She said that “the first concrete action” Congress could take against China is passing her Senate Resolution 553, which would "condemn" China's government for hiding information on the coronavirus and not being "transparent in their dealings when they tried to blame it on the U.S. military.”
Blackburn's is also sponsoring bipartisan legislation that calls for the return of all "active pharmaceutical ingredients," which are the building blocks of prescription drugs, to the U.S. "so that we're never caught in the position of not being able to get something we need in order to protect the people of our country.”
According to the Securing America’s Medicine Cabinet Act, only 28% of facilities producing active pharmaceutical ingredients are in the United States, and the number of Chinese facilities has more than doubled since 2010.
The language in the bill states it seeks to "encourage pharmaceutical drug manufacturers to spur innovations similar to those in other industries such as automotive, aerospace and semiconductors and bring drug manufacturing back to the United States, where ingredients and processes can be more easily verified."
The first step to true absolution is to forgive one’s self.
That’s not going to happen.
The summer is coming. If I understand this bug correctly it will dwindle to come back in late autumn. That time China, Europe and US should be ready but it would be bad news for the Third World. I wouldn’t be surprised to see some countries to lose a quarter of their population by May next year.
It’ll never happen Senator.
I think to pay on own bonds in the best strategy for US. It is that makes the country unique among others. US power is not in its Navy but in a green banknote.
The Israeli model is 10:1 return punishment.
That means 100 years of watching 1978 golf tournament highlights for you, Chairman Xi.
From your cell at Leavenworth, preferably.
It will never happen but it puts China on notice that we know the lay of the land re: Chinese communism and the virus.
We may not admit it, but the communists in China are war with the non-communist world. They (Chinese communists) are just fine with this war never breaking out into the open, but make no mistake about it...we are at war.
Xi knows it. President Trump knows it.
And thanks to the virus, the rest of the world is catching on.
I would recommend a more aggressive approach. We can identify every Treasury security held by the Chinese government, members of CCP and State owned corporations. Also, we can identify commercial assets held by Chinese CCP and military. We then find a a friendly federal court to file suit to recover damages, with that judgement, we extinguish all Treasury debt held by these entities and seize any property they hold in the US.
Make it part of an import tax.
the collective IQ of Congress has been declining exponentially for decades
We should have listened to the chinese! The Chinese in TAIWAN! They smelled a rat and knew the Mainland Chinese were lying when they sent a message telling Taiwan they had quarantined and separated cases and the virus was not transferred from animal to Human. Taiwan questioned and knew right away,if it’s not transferable from animal to human,why isolate cases? We should have listened to them,none of this would have happened,or would not have been near as bad
Why are we even asking? Let’s just tell the communists that we are marking the bonds “paid in full”, and encourage our allies to do likewise.
Marsha Blackburn, graduate of Mississippi State. NOT to be confused with Trent “K-Street” Lott and Thad Cochran, who were Ole Miss and NWO cheerleaders.
They should. It won’t happen, but they should.
It is a good bargaining chip, but has to be presented in a way that the US is not seeking forgiveness of debt.
The US can just default on the bonds, no borrower has to let their LENDER attack them and then have the Lender expect a return on investment.
Tell them to piss off. They have a collapsing economy in any case.
No direct financial restitution is appropriate. China’s lost manufacturing will be very painful.
Two thoughts:
China didn’t just give us this virus. They have been collecting deadly viruses in that bat research lab for years. I wouldn’t be the least surprised if we could credit them for most of the pandemics we have seen for decades.
Second:They are not going to give us anything, but we can “nationalize” all their properties in the US, and that is a lot of stuff.
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