Exclusive–Conservative Leaders Press Trump to ‘Hold the Chinese Communist Party Responsible’ for Coronavirus

A group of top conservative movement leaders are calling on President Donald Trump to hold the Chinese Community Party responsible for the coronavirus pandemic plaguing the United States and the world.

In a letter and a formal White House petition, the conservative leaders are pushing Trump to escalate tensions with Beijing as the United States slowly reopens nationwide after the coronavirus crisis rocked the country with more than a month’s worth of lockdowns.

The conservative leaders wrote in a letter to the president:

We believe that the Chinese Communist Party is responsible for this pandemic. China is the most significant threat facing America today, and the American people across party lines believe that China should be treated as the pariah state that it is. As conservative leaders, we urge you to hold the Chinese Communist Party responsible by taking immediate actions to reduce our dependence on Chinese manufacturing of medical products, investigate the extent of China’s role in spreading the pandemic, and stop federal funding for universities with Confucius Institutes. As you take tough action against China to protect the American people, you will have our full support and the support of the American people.

The signers of the letter include Americans for Limited Government president Rick Manning, Liberty Consulting president Ginni Thomas, Eagle Forum president Eunie Smith, National Association of Scholars president Peter Wood, the American Family Association’s Sandy Rios, ConservativeHQ’s George Rasley, Lopez Liberty’s Clare Lopez, Rally Forge’s Jake Hoffman, the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Myron Ebell, Jessie Jane Duff of the London Center for Policy Research, the National Center for Public Policy Research’s Justin Danhof, and author Dr. Tim Daughtry.

Accompanying the broader letter is a formal White House petition uploaded to the White House website. To get a formal response from the White House, the petition would need 100,000 signatures by May 28. Those interested in signing the petition can do so on the White House website.

“Communist China Is An Existential Threat To Freedom & Americans Stand With President Trump To Hold Them Accountable,” is the title of the White House petition. The petition reads:

President Trump, you have long recognized that the Chinese Communist Party is a grave threat to the security and prosperity of the United States. We ask that you: Issue an executive order to eliminate our dependence on China for manufacturing important pharmaceutical and medical products. Create an investigative team to assess the Chinese Communist Party’s role in covering up and spreading the pandemic. Restrict China’s influence on our universities. As you take tough action against China to protect the American people, you will have our full support and the support of the American people.

The petition also links to the broader three-page letter.

The letter continues after that opening paragraph by detailing how China is responsible for the spread of the virus:

China’s role in causing this pandemic is indisputable. News reports suggest that the U.S. Government finds it highly likely the virus originated from a lab accident at the Wuhan Institute of Virology Lab which was immediately covered up by the Chinese Communist Party. The Chinese Communist Party arrested Dr. Li Wenliang who tried to warn the world about the Wuhan virus. China pressured the World Health Organization to ignore warnings from Taiwan about the outbreak that could have given the rest of the world weeks to prepare. China informed the World Health Organization in mid-January that there was no evidence the Wuhan virus could be transmitted by humans, despite knowing how the Wuhan virus was spreading by mid-December.

They also noted that when Trump cut off flights from China to the United States, China was still letting people leave Wuhan for other countries but not for other areas of China. They wrote:

In January, China cut off the Hubei province from the rest of China, but continued to allow international flights out of China, which can only be interpreted as an attempt to spread the Wuhan virus. Throughout January and February, the Chinese Communist Party hoarded the global market of personal protective equipment, leaving other nations unprepared. Then, China sold millions of broken and faulty tests to the world, exacerbating the crisis in countries that were most affected by the Wuhan virus. Today, China is refusing to allow American companies to ship protective equipment out of China to deal with the pandemic that was created by China.

In the next section, the conservative leaders note that China has a long history of troubling behavior—and this pandemic is just the most recent example of that:

This pandemic has killed hundreds of thousands and nearly shut down the global economy. But this is only the latest example of the Chinese Communist Party’s malignant presence. For years, China has flooded the United States with fentanyl, exacerbating the opioid crisis and killing hundreds of thousands. The Chinese Communist Party’s state-sponsored theft of American intellectual property costs between $225 billion and $600 billion annually. One study found that since 2001, 3.7 million U.S. jobs were lost to China, as U.S. manufacturing firms struggle to compete against China’s slave labor and lack of respect for intellectual property. For decades, the Chinese Communist Party targeted America’s drug manufacturers, and now a large share of generic drugs come from China. In addition to the damage China does to the rest of the world, the Chinese Communist Party is a murderous dictatorship reminiscent of the worst regimes of the 20th century. China’s one-child policy led to millions of forced abortions. China sends millions of religious minorities to concentration camps, and arrests Christians for practicing their faith. China harvests organs from political prisoners to benefit the Chinese Communist Party. Even today, when the world’s eyes are on China’s crimes, the Chinese Communist Party is openly persecuting Africans.

The conservative leaders continued the letter with a three-step action plan for President Trump to hold China accountable.

First, they asked Trump to sign an executive order “to eliminate our dependence on China for manufacturing important pharmaceutical and medical products.”

Second, they asked the president to create a team to investigate China’s role in spreading and covering up the coronavirus pandemic. “This work should be led by the United States but can include representatives from other countries that were harmed by the Chinese Communist Party’s spreading of this pandemic,” they wrote.

Third, they called on Trump to restrict Chinese influence in American universities. They wrote:

The Department of Education should block any federal funds from going to a university that has a Confucius Institute funded by the Chinese Communist Party. These institutes give the Chinese Communist Party an outpost on campuses to recruit spies, steal intellectual property, and monitor Chinese students studying on campus

They concluded the letter by noting that if Trump takes these steps he believes the American people will be behind him, “We believe that tens of millions of conservatives would stand behind you in standing up to China,” they wrote. “And polling suggests that most Americans of all political parties recognize the threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party. Only 3% of Americans consider China an ally, and 58% recognize that China is unfriendly or an enemy. 90% of Republicans and 67% of Democrats agree that China is responsible for the spread of the Wuhan virus, and the majority of Americans agree that China should pay reparations. Taking on the Chinese Communist Party is the right thing to do, and Americans will stand behind you.”