Peter Navarro, White House trade adviser: ‘China lied, people died’

White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said Monday that the phrase to describe the coronavirus pandemic is “China lied, people died” and that there are still major unanswered questions about Beijing’s response to the virus.

“What’s important for the American people to understand very clearly is that ’China lied, people died’ as the now-slogan says and it’s absolutely correct,” Mr. Navarro said on Fox News.

He said China “spawned the virus” and hid it for about six weeks while it escaped from Wuhan and spread around the world.

“What did China know? When did they know it? Did the Communist Party bleach the wet market to hide something? Did they make scientists disappear from those labs in Wuhan to hide something?” he said.

Mr. Navarro’s comments came in the wake of a new intelligence report from the Department of Homeland Security that concluded the Chinese government withheld the severity of the virus in January as it simultaneously stockpiled medical supplies.

The virus was first discovered in Wuhan, China late last year before it spread elsewhere. More than 3.5 million people around the world have now been infected.

“We can confirm that the Chinese Communist Party did all that it could to make sure that the world didn’t learn in a timely fashion about what was taking place,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on ABC’s “This Week.”

“President Trump is very clear. We’re going to hold those responsible accountable, and we’ll do so on a timeline that is our own,” Mr. Pompeo said.

He said there’s “enormous evidence” that the virus started in a lab in Wuhan, rather than a “wet market” as had been thought.

China’s state media lambasted Mr. Pompeo for the remarks, calling the notion that the virus leaked from a lab a “complete and utter lie.”

The back-and-forth between Chinese and U.S. officials, coupled with the global economic slowdown, has raised questions about whether China will honor a trade pact President Trump helped strike before the spread of the virus escalated to a global crisis.

Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin said Monday that China should still be able to follow through on its pledge to increase imports from the U.S. by about $200 billion over the next two years as part of the trade deal struck in January.

“I’m expecting them to meet their obligations,” Mr. Mnuchin said on Fox Business Network.

Mr. Trump on Sunday threatened to cancel the deal, which also included rolling back U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods, if China didn’t hold up its end of the deal on buying U.S. exports.