WASHINGTON — White House trade adviser Peter Navarro is calling the coronavirus a “product of the Chinese Communist Party” and suggesting without evidence it may have been intentionally created by the Chinese government.
Navarro says on CNN’s “State of the Union” that it remains unclear how the virus started and “until we get some information about what happened in those labs or what happened in that wet market, we know that the virus was spawned in China.”
Jake Tapper: Did I just hear you say China created this virus?
— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) June 21, 2020
Peter Navarro: You did not hear me wrong. That virus was a product of the Chinese Communist Party.
Tapper: But you think it was purposely created?
Navarro: That is an open question. pic.twitter.com/gv4FBa2M0W
President Donald Trump and his allies have been repeating the unsubstantiated theory linking the outbreak’s origin to a possible accident at a Chinese virology laboratory. U.S. officials describe the evidence as purely circumstantial.
The leading theory is that infection among humans began at an animal market in Wuhan.
Navarro says it’s “open question” whether the virus was purposefully created. He says in his view, the Chinese government is “guilty until proven innocent.”
