Senior Hudson Institute Fellow Dr. Nadia Schadlow praised President Donald Trump during a CNN interview on Sunday, saying “there’s no question” that Trump is “right” on China.
Dr. Schadlow, who was most recently U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategy, addressed the issue of the coronavirus outbreak that originated in China and has since devastated the world.
“Trump is absolutely right about China,” Schadlow said. “When he took office, he essentially looked at what China had been doing over the past 15 years that had been noticed, by the way, by bipartisan experts, you know, both sides of the aisle in terms of its unfair trade practices, its theft of intellectual property, its forced tech transfers, its complete lack of reciprocity vis-a-vis the United States.”
Later in the interview, Schadlow continued, “In this particular COVID situation, we have seen exactly what he has said. China’s coverup is costing us millions of lives, thousands of deaths. They have silenced and disappeared people in early December who were the first to call out the problem. They removed and destroyed evidence of the virus, bleaching wet stall markets, closing and shuttering labs, preventing people, still experts, from going and understanding sources of the virus, the genomes of the virus.”
“They denied human to human transmission for up to seven weeks, from early December until January 20th. That’s a long time,” Schadlow continued. “A long time when people are traveling. And speaking of traveling, they stopped internal travel in China, but did not stop external travel, which tells you a little bit about how they were thinking about the rest of the world and a little bit about how they were thinking about not caring about infecting people all over the world.”
Schadlow concluded, “So what President Trump actually has been talking about for the past three years, unfortunately we’re seeing proof of that today. And unfortunately because no one wants to see what’s happening now in the world, the tragedy, economic, health, personal, on all levels. So there’s no question he’s right.”
WATCH:
.@HudsonInstitute’s Nadia Shadlow: "China’s coverup is costing us millions of lives, thousands of deaths.”
Their post-outbreak actions show they weren’t “caring about infecting people all over the world.” pic.twitter.com/jNWWwn50kE
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) April 20, 2020
TRANSCRIPT:
CNN HOST FAREED ZAKARIA: Nadia, let me begin with you and ask you, lay out what you mean when you say that Trump is right about China.
NADIA SCHADLOW, SENIOR FELLOW, HUDSON INSTITUTE: Sure, Fareed. Hi, Kishore. Trump is absolutely right about China. When he took office, he essentially looked at what China had been doing over the past 15 years that had been noticed, by the way, by bipartisan experts, you know, both sides of the aisle in terms of its unfair trade practices, its theft of intellectual property, its forced tech transfers, its complete lack of reciprocity vis-a-vis the United States.
All of these activities had been noticed, as I said, by previous administrations. But President Trump decided to approach the problem in a different way. He basically said constant engagement and constant cooperation without reciprocity wasn’t working. So he changed his tactics. What he talked about vis-a-vis China and what he explained vis-a-vis China is actually not really in dispute across — as I said, a wide range of bipartisan experts.
What’s in dispute is his new tactics. In this particular COVID situation, we have seen exactly what he has said. China’s coverup is costing us millions of lives, thousands of deaths. They have silenced and disappeared people in early December who were the first to call out the problem. They removed and destroyed evidence of the virus, bleaching wet stall markets, closing and shuttering labs, preventing people, still experts, from going and understanding sources of the virus, the genomes of the virus.
They denied human to human transmission for up to seven weeks, from early December until January 20th. That’s a long time. A long time when people are traveling. And speaking of traveling, they stopped internal travel in China, but did not stop external travel, which tells you a little bit about how they were thinking about the rest of the world and a little bit about how they were thinking about not caring about infecting people all over the world.
And in fact, the first couple to infect — to reach Italy, it’s considered the first COVID case there, was a couple from Wuhan who left China around January 23rd right before the international travel ban set in. So what President Trump actually has been talking about for the past three years unfortunately we’re seeing proof of that today. And unfortunately because no one wants to see what’s happening now in the world, the tragedy, economic, health, personal, on all levels. So there’s no question he’s right.