If China is responsible for the coronavirus pandemic, as some have suggested, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) argues the communist Asia nation must be made to pay a price for the damage inflicted on the world, both in terms of lives and economy.

Cotton told Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity that the proximity of the pandemic’s start to a laboratory remains “highly coincidental.” However, said Chinese President Xi Jinping should be held accountable if it turns out to be more than just a coincident.

“Since January, I’ve said it seems to be highly coincidental that this very contagious virus originated just a few hundred yards or maybe a couple of miles from laboratories where the Chinese Communist Party researches coronaviruses,” Cotton said. “Bret Baier’s reporting tonight, if it bears out, shows that the Chinese Communist Party is responsible for every single death, every job lost, every retirement nest egg lost from this coronavirus, and Xi Jinping and his Chinese Communist apparatchiks must be made to pay the price. If that turns out to be true.”

Cotton said he was offering legislation that would allow individuals to use the American court system against China as a possible avenue for accountability.

“Just imagine — not just in America, but all around the world, the demands for accountability and consequences on the Chinese Communist Party and Chairman Xi if it turns out that Chinese negligence and then Chinese corruption and treachery was responsible for unleashing this pandemic on the world,” he added.

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