The American Thinker posted an article today about the recent trade agreement with China and the impact the coronavirus might have on that agreement.
The article notes:
Yet another indication that China knew it was about to release a deadly and destructive pandemic on the world is seen in its last minute insertion into the Phase 1 trade deal of a clause releasing it from its obligations under the deal in the event of a natural disaster. It is another reason why China pushes the wet markets story about the origin of the Wuhan virus and dismisses a leak from or accident at the Wuhan Institute of Virology as some tinfoil-hat conspiracy theory. If the lab origin for the Wuhan virus is officially confirmed, China’s economy is fatally screwed.
The article quotes K.T. McFarland, who served as Deputy National Security Advisor under Michael Flynn for the first four months of the Trump administration:
One of the reasons that they keep insisting, despite mounting evidence that it came from a lab in Wuhan, they keep insisting, no, no, it came from a wet market, or maybe it was America who did it. They cannot admit culpability for the following reason, if they do, then there’s a clause that they put into the Phase 1 US-China Trade Deal, where in essence in this trade deal it said we would lift sanctions, we would lift the tariffs on them and then they would buy a lot of agriculture and other goods from us.
But there’s a clause that’s in there, a get out of jail free clause, which says, however, if there is a natural occurring disaster, the two parties will renegotiate. In other words, China doesn’t necessarily want to keep the terms of the deal. And so it’s very important for everybody, for them, to say, well, it’s a naturally occurring disaster coming out of the wet lab. It wasn’t China who did that.
So not only do they give themselves an out for the trade deal, that they were pressured into signing, but they also will give themselves an out if companies and countries and individuals, all come to the International Courts and try to sue China.
The article notes that tariffs may be one way to force China to pay for its negligence in misinforming the world about the virus. I think that is a good idea.