Mike Pompeo calls for US bans on Chinese travelers after Beijing eases travel restrictions – and claims Xi Jinping is trying to infect the world with a different variant of COVID
- Mike Pompeo warned that China is trying to spread a new variant of COVID-19
- Comes after President Xi Jinping decided to resume travel from China
- Several countries have already issued requirements for pre-departure testing
- “Xi got away with it once,” Pomepoe said. “I regret that he was not held accountable”
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo insists the US – and the world – should stop accepting travel from China immediately after the communist country announced it would ease travel restrictions in the new year.
He warned that Chinese President Xi Jinping plans to infect the world and spread a new COVID-19 variant after “the whole world has gone through hell”.
China, which still has the strictest COVID-19 restrictions, announced last month that it would start allowing travel to and from the country after three years of a “zero-COVID” policy.
Several countries, including the US, immediately said Chinese travelers must test negative for coronavirus before boarding flights.
“It sounds like we’ve infected up to 1 million Chinese. Fifty percent of their population travels,” Pompeo said in a Sunday interview with Cats Roundtable host John Catsimatidis.
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned China is trying to spread a new variant of COVID-19 by reopening travel out of the country
“There is no reason why we should allow the Chinese to do this again, sending Chinese-infected people around the world and knowingly infecting people around the world,” he added.
Pompeo served as Secretary of State under President Donald Trump from April 2018 until the end of his presidency on January 20, 2021. It has been speculated that he will run for the White House in 2024.
He told Cats Roundtable in his New Year’s Day radio interview that Xi must be “held accountable” for every global death caused by COVID-19.
“Xi got away with it once,” Pomepoe said. “I regret that he has not been held accountable. We should still be doing that for the 6 million people who died between spring 2020 and today.”
‘But he’s doing it again. Just like in spring 2020 [when] he was sending people around the world he knew were infected, he’s doing the same damn thing again,” lamented the former head of the State Department.
“He will infect millions more. We shouldn’t allow that.’
World leaders from the US, Australia, Canada and the UK all announced new rules last week that would require every passenger from China to test negative for the coronavirus before boarding a plane to board their respective country to travel.
Some countries believe testing is required before leaving China because the international community does not trust China’s infection data and vaccine protection.
Pompeo warned that the world could soon see images similar to what emerged from Milan, Italy, in 2020 as COVID-19 first emerged and began to spread across Europe and the world.
However, some experts have downplayed the threat that another variant could really pose around the world and the impact it could have.
A man who helped develop the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine said that “trying to ban a virus” through travel restrictions “isn’t working very well”.
“Keep calm, we’ve got that covered,” said Professor Calum Semple, an outbreak medicine expert at the University of Liverpool.