Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R) thinks China owes the United States compensation for damages caused by the coronavirus.
“We ought to be adopting legislation to allow Americans to sue the Chinese government for their loved ones,” Gingrich said in an interview on “Fox & Friends” on Monday morning.
He added, “We ought to be looking at reparations from China. I think the Germans have indicated they think the Chinese owe them $149 billion for the damage they did to the German economy. The amount here would be incalculably bigger.”
Watch the video below:
Gingrich’s comments come as the mitigation efforts designed to slow the spread of the coronavirus have wreaked havoc on the U.S. economy. The latest unemployment report found that roughly 30 million Americans have filed for unemployment since the shutdowns began.
While advisers to President Donald Trump have said they believe the economy will bounce back quickly, they have also predicted that the second quarter Gross Domestic Product will be the “biggest negative number that we’ve seen since the Great Depression,” as IJR reported.
Some Republicans have already proposed sending China a bill to cover the costs of the pandemic response. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) suggested canceling some of the roughly $1.1 trillion the U.S. owes China.
“They should be paying us, not us paying China,” Graham previously said.
While lawmakers have discussed such ideas, Missouri and Mississippi filed lawsuits against the Chinese government for damages that resulted from the coronavirus.
However, under current law, which protects foreign governments from such lawsuits, it is unlikely it will make much headway.