Congressman Robert Aderholt, R-Alabama, said that โChina needs to be held accountableโ and praised President Donald Trumpโs โhard stances on trade.โ
โThis entire pandemic can be traced back to Wuhan, China, where it originated and was let loose on the world,โ Aderholt said. โIt is evident that China did virtually nothing to stop the global spread of this virus, and they have withheld information about it since we first learned what COVID-19 was. The simple fact of the matter is that China needs to be held accountable for their actions on the world stage, and I believe President Trump has done a great job in doing this.โ
โHe answered my call to move medical manufacturing back to the U.S. and out of China, and he has taken hard stances on trade that no other administration has ever done,โ Aderholt said. โChina is afraid of this administration, and I am proud to join this fight in taking China head on. There is more work to be done, but holding China accountable is the first and most important step.โ
The president discussed China at a rally on Wednesday in Gastonia, North Carolina.
โItโs sometimes referred to as the China virus right, which I think is a far, which I think is a far more accurate,โ Trump said of the coronavirus. โI mean you could also use the corona word, but that sounds like a beautiful town in Italy. Itโs not fair. This is the China plague or the China virus. Thatโs where it came from. We have to be accurate, and we were really doing well against China. We still are by the way, but we were doing so well, you know, hey.โ
โDo you remember that for years, for 10 years, you heard China was going to supplant us in 2019, right, 2019 that weโre going to be bigger than us their economy?โ Trump continued. โWell, that didnโt work out too well for them. We were beating them by leaps and bounds, and then we got hit with the plague. No sooner had the ink dried on a great China deal, we made a wonderful trade deal.โ
โIt was great, in fact, they ordered the largest amount two weeks ago of corn soybeans, and beef cattle beef that weโve ever had, because they want to keep me happy because they know that Iโm not satisfied,โ Trump claimed. โThis is no good. What happened! This is no good what they did to us. No good. The ink hadnโt even dried on our trade deal with China wonderful deal, and this happened.โ
โThis should have been stopped in China,โ Trump said. โThey should have been able to stop it. They stopped it from going into the rest of China, but they didnโt stop it from going into Europe, the United States, and the rest of the world right. Weโre going to find out why too, but the American people are with me.โ
At least 1,136,335 people globally have died from COVID-19.
Aderholt is in his 12th term representing Alabamaโs 4th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. Aderholt faces Democratic nominee Rick Neighbors in the Nov. 3 general election.
