White House trade adviser Peter Navarro criticized television health experts encouraging the government to remain closed, saying the remarks were disappointing and ignored the “mortal dangers” to closing the economy for a long time because of the coronavrus pandemic.
Navarro in an interview with The New York Times said a longer shutdown of the economy could cause negative health effects.
“It’s disappointing that so many of the medical experts and pundits pontificating in the press appear tone-deaf to the very significant losses of life and blows to American families that may result from an extended economic shutdown,” Navarro said, according to the Times.
“Instead, they piously preen on their soap boxes speaking only half of the medical truth without reference or regard for the other half of the equation,” he added, “which is the very real mortal dangers associated with the closure of the economy for an extended period.”
The trade adviser, who now leads the U.S.’s medical supply chain, was one of the first of President Trump’s advisers to caution about the economic impacts of the pandemic, in January and February memos.
The pandemic and the country’s containment efforts have already resulted in more than 16 million Americans filing for unemployment. Industries remain shut down as most of the country is under stay-at-home orders.
The adviser warned the U.S. economy experienced a “China shock” that could overshadow the economic effects of China’s entry in the World Trade Organization in the early 2000s.
“As numerous academic studies have documented, economic shocks like China’s trade shock can increase mortality rates associated with suicide, drug overdoses, alcohol poisoning, liver disease, lung cancer, poor diet and cigarettes,” he said to the Times, “while destroying families through higher rates of single-parent households, child poverty, and divorce and lower rates of fertility and marriage.”
A fierce debate is emerging across the country and within the administration about how quickly the country should reopen businesses and ease social distancing practices as signs emerge in some states that the number of coronavirus cases is peaking.
The Trump administration has been eyeing an early May reopening date, but public health experts have been pushing back, arguing that opening too early could lead to a new wave of cases.
The scientists have been developing a vaccine, but Navarro said the economy could restart without one.
President Trump said on Friday the decision to reopen the economy will be the most difficult one in his life. He tweeted Monday that the decision, which he said was the president’s and not the governors’, “will be made shortly.”