{UAH} AS WE FIGHT COVID-19 WE NEED TO LOOK CLOSELY AT THE SMALL BUISNESS DAMAGE

Lesson learned on China: Bring our companies back home

by Rep. Mark Green

 | April 21, 2020 12:58 AM

 

The Chinese Communist Party’s coronavirus has already cost taxpayers more than $2 trillion. And that’s not even counting all the business and industry that’s been lost since the economy came to a screeching halt.

Our small businesses are being forced to go belly up and families are losing livelihoods, all because of a virus they had no part in causing. While the Chinese Communist Party proclaims victory over COVID-19, the United States and the entire world suffer. To make matters worse, China has reopened the very wet markets that it originally blamed for causing this virus and is sharing few details about the Wuhan lab that new reports indicate might ultimately be the true culprit.

In all of this, the Chinese Communist Party continues to lie to the world about the virus’s spread in China and to prevent doctors and scientists from studying the virus’s origins. That has cost many lives around the world, including thousands here in America. It’s time for us to put Americans first.

That’s why I’ve sent a letter to congressional leadership urging them to include incentives for companies to move back from China in any upcoming legislation Congress may consider to fight COVID-19. If there’s one thing the public has learned in all of this, it’s become crystal clear that we cannot depend on China for honest information or to export medical supplies in times of emergency. Congress should temporarily allow companies that move back from China to expense 100% of the moving costs to the federal government. And, although I'm personally no fan of tariffs, I believe that we should use the existing tariffs President Trump levied on China, as long as they remain, to finance the repatriation of these companies.

One of the big disincentives to companies moving back to our soil is the cost. For many, it is just too expensive and too risky to undertake an international move, especially now at a time of global economic uncertainty. However, as 22 million people have now filed for unemployment, and as we’ve been forced to make our own homemade masks out of scarves and bandanas while our medical supply chains are bound up in China’s corrupt system, it's clear now more than ever that we must bring our companies home.

There’s only so much we can do about what has already happened in this global pandemic, but we can hold China accountable and learn the lessons before us so that this never happens again. China’s failures have created serious ramifications for the entire world that we cannot quickly shake off. We would be fools to keep doing business as usual with a country that has now caused over 40,000 U.S. deaths and counting.

The public has suffered and paid enough for a virus they had no part in causing. This is Chinese President Xi Jinping’s virus. It’s time to bring companies home and make the Chinese Communist Party pay for it.

Rep. Mark Green is an emergency room physician and combat veteran who served in Afghanistan and Iraq. He represents Tennessee's 7th Congressional District.

EM         -> { Trump for 2020 }

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