Republicans press for China to be held responsible for spread of coronavirus pandemic around the world
REPUBLICANS are pushing for China to be held responsible for the coronavirus pandemic — which has infected nearly 1.5 million people worldwide.
Rep. Jim Banks, of , claimed the country — where the outbreak began — spread misinformation and tried to conceal it, which he says slowed other countries from taking steps to protect themselves.
![Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., said 'the world must hold [China] accountable for mishandling this outbreak'](http://www.the-sun.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2020/04/NINTCHDBPICT000552925094-1.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
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“China shoulders most of that blame. Rather than succumb to the propaganda and spin of Chinese officials, the world must hold them accountable for mishandling this outbreak,” Banks continued.
“If the United Nations cannot even do that, it has completely lost its purpose.”
Banks, who is a member of the , is passing a letter around to his colleagues trying to gain support for a case to face the United Nations International Court of Justice.
, Banks plans to send the letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Attorney General William Barr in the next few weeks.
Weeks ago, Banks condemning the Chinese government over its handling of the outbreak.
Rep. Lance Gooden, , , which would amend the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) to allow the Justice Department to investigate the outbreak and bring claims against China.
Another , Sen. Tom Cotton, of , that “we will hold accountable those who inflicted it on the world.”
“The Wuhan coronavirus is a grave challenge to our great nation,” he said. “I have every confidence America will once again marshal the resolve, toughness, and genius of our people to overcome the serious threat to our health and well-being posed by the Wuhan coronavirus.”
On Thursday, Cotton alleged the leader of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus — an Ethiopian and the WHO’s first African leader — was "in the pocket of China.”
"He was a cabinet minister in Ethiopia when China was investing deeply there and bribing cabinet officials. He has a well-known and, frankly, well-deserved reputation for corruption that's gone from Ethiopia [to] now the WHO," Cotton .
Cotton was echoing recent remarks from President Donald Trump, who said the international group had “called it wrong” on the virus and that the organization was “very China-centric.”
Trump suggested that the WHO had gone along with Beijing’s efforts months ago to minimize the severity of the outbreak.
The WHO has praised China for its transparency on the virus, even though there has been reason to believe that more people died of the coronavirus than what China says is their official tally.
“They should have known and they probably did know,” Trump said of WHO officials.
Attorney General Barr recently said that China is a bigger threat to the U.S. than Russia.
“Not just in the election process, but I think, across the board, there is simply no comparison," Barr said.
"China is a very serious threat to the United States geopolitically, economically, militarily, and a threat to the integrity of our institutions given their ability to influence things.”
Additionally, Sen. Lindsey Graham and Sen. Cory Booker, the former presidential candidate and Democrat from New Jersey, , cats, dogs and other animals for humans to eat.
It has been suspected that a “wet market” in Wuhan, China, considered ground zero of the world’s outbreak, is to blame for the coronavirus.
“What can China do to help the world? Shut those markets down,” Graham told Fox News earlier this month.
“These are open-air markets where they sell monkey, they sell bat,” the senator said. “We think this whole thing started from the transmission from a bat to a human.”
Graham and Booker, along with more than 60 bipartisan congressional lawmakers, to permanently ban such venues.
They said “aggressive action toward a global shutdown of live wildlife markets and a ban on the international trade of live wildlife that is not intended for conservation purposes.”
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“Live wildlife markets, known as ‘wet’ markets, were linked to the 2003 SARS outbreak and are believed to be the source of the current COVID-19,” Booker and Graham wrote.
“As this pandemic continues to threaten the lives of millions, pushes healthcare systems to the breaking point, and devastates economies around the world, it is imperative that we all take action as a global community to protect public health.”
As of Thursday afternoon, the U.S. reported more than 363,000 cases of the virus, with nearly 16,000 deaths.
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