Donald Trump’s top trade adviser has suggested China deliberately allowed hundreds of thousands of people infected with coronavirus to leave the country “to seed and spread the virus” abroad.

Peter Navarro’s remarks follow the White House’s accelerated rhetoric against China, where the virus is believed to have originated, as the crisis in the US grows nearly four months after a pandemic was declared.

As the US approached its Fourth of July holiday weekend, more than a dozen states saw record numbers of new cases. Cases reached more than 50,000 for a third day in a row.

Five more states broke single-day records for newly identified cases on Friday, a day after eight other states saw record high numbers.

On Thursday, the US set yet another single-day record for new cases, with more than 55,000 cases identified, for the sixth time within two weeks.

More than 2.8 million people in the US have been infected with Covid-19 and more than 129,000 people have died since the onset of the outbreak.

While firework displays, parades and other events across the US are cancelled, the president – leading a nation that has mostly rolled back on an easing of the lockdown – headed to South Dakota for a Fourth of July event at Mount Rushmore. Officials said that physical distancing and face coverings would not be enforced.

The president has repeatedly falsely claimed that cases in the US are rising because more tests are being performed. However, scientists says the rate of test positivity is increasing, suggesting the virus is spreading.

Mr Navarro claimed on MSNBC that the “Chinese communist party” is responsible for forcing Americans to “stay locked in our homes and lose our jobs” despite demands for increased testing and tracing and federal aid to help out-of-work Americans stay home while the virus is brought under control. However, a state-by-state patchwork response of brief lockdowns across the US – which several states did not mandate – has not been enough to reduce infections.

He said that “everybody” had believed “that come summer, the heat and humidity would get rid of the virus” though health officials have warned for months that would not be the case. “It doesn’t look that way. This looks like a weaponised virus.”

Asked whether he believed that China had deliberately and knowingly sent people to infect other countries, he criticised China for restricting domestic travel “while they freely sent hundreds of thousands of Chinese nationals on aircraft around the world”.

“Let me be really clear about this. I don’t think it really matters ... What they deliberately did – and this is beyond reproach in terms of the facts – they deliberately allowed Chinese nationals to come into the US, Italy and everywhere in between, who were infected, while they were locking down their own transportation network,” he added.

Critics have argued that the administration’s frequent attacks on China are a ploy to distract from its own failures to combat the virus.

Mr Navarro’s remarks follows the president’s Twitter message on 30 June: “As I watch the Pandemic spread its ugly face all across the world, including the tremendous damage it has done to the USA, I become more and more angry at China. People can see it, and I can feel it!”

The president had praised China’s transparency and his relationship with President Xi Jinping over several weeks leading up to a US outbreak but reversed course as his administration faced criticism for its failure to mobilise a response.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal last month, he suggested that China had “intentionally” spread the virus, following a conspiracy theory among White House officials that Covid-19 was generated in a lab.

“They’re saying, ‘Man, we’re in a mess,’” he said. “’The United States is killing us.’ Don’t forget, my economy during the last year and a half was blowing them away ... I don’t think they would do that ... but you never know.”

This week, the president heralded “great news” that the nation’s death rate from coronavirus “is down” despite the surge in new cases. In the spring, health officials reported as many as 3,000 deaths a day, with the virus proving fatal to nearly 8 per cent of infected patients.

In recent weeks, Covid-19 deaths have dropped to roughly 5 per cent. But health officials have warned that the US has probably undercounted the nation’s death toll.

A recently released report from researchers at Yale University compared the number of excess deaths from previous years to non-coronavirus deaths in 2020, finding that the “official” death toll could present a “substantial undercount” of the actual deaths from the disease.

In May, Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert who is heading the federal coronavirus response, told NBC that it’s unlikely that Covid-19 deaths are being over-reported and that “there’s more of a chance of missing some that are really coronavirus deaths that are not being counted” but not enough to significantly alter trends.

Dr Fauci told a Senate committee this week that Americans “need to emphasise the responsibility that we have both as individuals and as part of a societal effort to end the epidemic”.

“We’ve got to get that message out, that we are all in this together,” he said. “Anything that favours the use of masks – whether it’s giving out free masks or any other mechanism – I am thoroughly in favour of.”

The president also appeared to reverse his public posturing on masks after dismissing federal guidance in April and stoking a cultural and political war among his supporters and Democrats over wearing them.

“I don’t know if you need mandatory,” the president told Fox Business Network on Wednesday. “I’m all for masks. I think masks are good.”

Several Republican governors who initially resisted quarantine efforts in their state have since rolled back reopenings or mandated face coverings in public, effective this week.

After his state saw a record daily number of new cases on Wednesday, hitting more than 8,000, Texas Governor Greg Abbot has ordered residents to wear masks in public.

Arizona’s governor Doug Ducey is also requiring residents to wear masks in public after the state saw a single-day spike of 4,000 new cases.

Florida saw 10,000 cases in one day on Thursday, the only state other than New York to see a single-day spike to ever breach 10,000.

But governor Ron DeSantis has not mandated further closures after he shut down bars and beaches a second time. State lawmakers have pressed the governor to put a statewide mask order in place.

Nearly 9,500 new cases were reported in the third most-populous state on Friday, marking the third-largest spike recorded in a single day, as statewide totals since the beginning of the outbreak near 180,000.

https://twitter.com/GlobalHimalaya/status/1279570454349443073

The Chinese Communist Party needs to be held accountable for its role in eroding democracy in both the U.S. and Hong Kong, White House Trade Advisor Peter Navarro asserted Saturday.

In an interview on "Fox & Friends Weekend" with host Pete Hegseth, Navarro urged Americans to "unite around" the fact that the Chinese Communist Party lied about the spread of coronavirus leading to the deaths of Americans.

CHINA APPOINTS COMMUNIST PARTY HARDLINER TO OVERSEE HONG KONG'S NEW SECURITY OFFICE

"It's over 130,000 Americans so far, Pete. And, do you know what? There is nothing on that death certificate that has party affiliation. The cause of death is the ‘China virus,'" he accused.

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According to data from the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, there are now almost 2.8 million confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United States and just shy of 130,000 deaths.

Navarro said he believed that "anger" over the lockdowns, "anxiousness" about an uncertain economic future, and "fear of getting the virus" has led to disunity and national unrest.

"And then, you’ve got these radical elements that want to basically have another Chinese Cultural Revolution to destroy our culture, our habits, our customs, our ideas," he added. "What Mao called the [Four Olds]."

"And, what we have to do is unite around this central fact: China lied; people died. The CCP lied; Americans died," Navarro reiterated.

In order to do so, he told Hegseth that Americans need to unite on "literally making [the Chinese Communist Party] pay for that."

U.S. President Donald Trump and China's President Xi Jinping arrive at a state dinner at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, November 9, 2017. (REUTERS/Thomas Peter)

"They also have to come clean on exactly what they’ve been doing with that virus. Is it an engineered virus, for example? Or did it simply slip out of a lab? Where did it come from?" he asked, referencing other virus origin theories. "Until we know the answer to those questions, we won't know how to fight this virus."

Navarro then shifted his focus to Hong Kong. On Tuesday, Beijing tightened its grip on the former British colony by passing a contentious security law that critics say undermines the semi-autonomous territory’s judicial independence.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke out against China’s power grab in a statement shortly before reports of the bill's approval.

“If China wants to regain the trust of Hong Kongers and the international community, it should honor the promises it made to the Hong Kong people and to the United Kingdom in the U.N.-registered 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration,” his statement read.

The Trump administration has warned for weeks that, if the law was passed, it would take action to end special U.S. trade and commercial preferences Hong Kong had enjoyed since reverting to Chinese rule in 1997.

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"The other thing I should say on this glorious fourth is today we are mourning the loss of the independence of Hong Kong even as we are celebrating our own independence," noted Navarro. "And, I think Americans might want to reflect on what is happening to the people in Hong Kong at the hand, the brutal hand of the Chinese Communist Party. And, don’t think that, ‘Oh, it’s just Hong Kong.’ China, the Chinese Communist Party’s doing that to us right now with this virus tearing us apart."

Navarro also pointed out that residents of Hong Kong are going to be absorbed into "what is effectively a great firewall concentration camp" in the "worst Orwellian kind of nightmare you can imagine."

"So, we’ve got to get tough on China," he stated. "This president is the only president that has ever done that."

"And, I can't imagine a world in which 'Beijing Joe Biden' gets the keys to the Oval Office, because that will be the death of this republic. And, I think it's worth saying that on July 4th," Navarro concluded.

Fox News’ Edmund DeMarche, Stephen Sorace, and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

团结美国人民，追溯病毒真相

白宫贸易顾问彼得·纳瓦罗（Peter Navarro）周六《福克斯与朋友周末》中的采访中明确表示：中共必须为自己在侵蚀美国和香港的民主制度中所扮演的角色负责。并且呼吁美国人民的认知必须“高度一致”：即中共在冠状病毒传播上的撒谎导致美国人死亡这是不容置疑的事实。

纳瓦罗责问中共：你们得坦白，你们到底用那个病毒做了什么？病毒是一种实验室制造的病毒（engineered virus）吗？还是只是从实验室里泄漏出来的？它的源头在哪里？必须得到这些问题的答案才知道如何对付这种病毒。

向中共追责追偿

根据约翰-霍普金斯冠状病毒资源中心的数据，目前美国有近280万例中共确诊病例，死亡人数达到了13万左右。纳瓦罗说：“目前已经有超过13万美国人死亡，死亡证明上死因一栏应该写上“中共病毒”。纳瓦罗反复呼吁美国人围绕这个核心事实团结起来：中共撒谎，人民死亡。共产党撒谎，美国人死亡，必须要让中国共产党为此付出代价。

纳瓦罗认为，民众对封锁的 “愤怒”、对不确定的经济前景的 “焦虑”以及 对感染病毒的“恐惧”导致了美国目前不团结和动荡的局面。而这个局面催生了激进分子，他们本质上希望有另一个中国式的文化大革命，以摧毁美国的文化，美国的习惯，美国的习俗，美国的思想，也就是毛泽东所谓的“四旧”。（译者注：四旧是指旧思想、旧文化、旧风俗、旧习惯的合称、统称，含贬义。破四旧不仅造成了社会生活的混乱，财产、文物的损失，更可怕的是让红卫兵从学生循规蹈矩的行为规范、习惯里挣脱出来，打破了种种文明禁忌，把虚妄的阶级斗争从理念转化为实行践履的狂热。）

为维护自由世界的民主独立而战

纳瓦罗对于破坏香港这个半自治领士司法独立的《中共国安法》声明：如果中共想重新获得香港人和国际社会的信任，就应该履行在联合国注册的1984年《中英联合声明》中对香港人和英国的承诺。川普政府数周来一直警告说，如果《中共国安法》通过，将采取行动结束香港自1997年恢复中共统治以来享有的美国特殊贸易和贸易优惠。

纳瓦罗说在这个光辉的美国独立日里，我们在庆祝自己独立的同时，也在哀悼香港失去独立。纳瓦罗比喻香港居民将被吸进一个 “巨大的防火墙围成的集中营”，是你能相像的 “最糟糕的奥威尔式噩梦”。（译者：指对自由开放社会的破坏）。纳瓦罗希望美国人民去反思，香港人民正在面对着残暴的中共政权，不要简单认为这只是香港的事情，中共现在在对美国做着同样的事情，中共正在利用病毒想把美国撕碎。

纳瓦罗最后说美国政府必须对中共强硬起来，而川普总统是唯一一位能做到这一点的总统。

评：郭文贵先生带领的爆料革命啼血呼唤三年多，香港人民付出了上万人的生命，用一年多的顽强抗争向全世界证明中共政权的残暴，直至今日全球付出了110多万人感染中共病毒，53万人死亡，而美国也已付出了13万人的代价，终于等到了今天这个大日子。纳瓦罗作为川普总统最信任的发言人在美国独立日发誓要对中共病毒真相彻底追责，说明美国已经准备好了，中共试图用投毒搞死美国，用Antifa搞乱美国等等招数都不能摧毁美国集结全球正义力量摧毁共产党这个毒瘤，维护自由世界民主价值制度的决心。

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