Republican Senator Lindsay Graham proposed a bill on liability for COVID-19, allowing U.S. President Donald Trump to impose sanctions on China if the country does not provide a full account of the events that led to the outbreak of COVID-19.
According to Graham, had it not been for the “deception” of the ruling Communist Party of China, the virus would not have appeared in the United States, where more than 80,000 Americans died of the infection. According to the senator, China refused to allow investigators to examine how the disease began. Graham believes that China will not cooperate without coercion.
The senator asked Trump to assure Congress within 60 days that China had provided a full report on the emergence of COVID-19.
In addition, it must be confirmed that China has closed all “wet markets” that could put people at risk for health, and has released all Hong Kong supporters of democracy arrested after the pandemic began.
The bill would allow the US president to impose a range of sanctions, including an assets freeze, a travel ban and visa cancellation, as well as restrictions on loans to Chinese businesses by US institutions and a ban on listing Chinese firms on US exchanges.
Trump and his Republican supporters have repeatedly accused Beijing of failing to alert the world to the gravity and scope of the COVID-19 outbreak.