The economic costs of COVID-19 that are burdening the United States and its taxpayers are undoubtedly significant. Just this week, the stock market lost over 3 trillion dollars worth of value. Beyond the stock market, the downstream economic impacts due to COVID-19 include personal health costs, travel restrictions, closure of conferences and meetings, widespread workplace shutdowns, potential school shutdowns, supply chain disruption, closure of major entertainment events, a strain on the hospitals and public health resources, general uncertainty, and more are equally significant. It is clear that this loss is materially due to the novel coronavirus rather than the underlying global economic conditions of our country. 

Epidemiologists agree that COVID-19 was far from an unexpected outbreak, but rather, due to lax Chinese policy towards "wet markets" (see [1]), whose regulation has been shady ever since the similar SARS outbreak (see Vox video linked [2] for an eye-opening discussion of wet markets and their role in the COVID-19 outbreak). To make matters worse, the Chinese government covered up concerns about the virus from doctors warning the regime to take action. This doctor later died of the virus. China continues to lack transparency, which is slowing global response to fight the virus (see [4] [5]). The regime's delusion has spread so far as to claim to be a global leader in fighting the virus [6]. Despite the aforementioned mishandlings COVID-19, the Chinese government has yet to take responsibility for COVID-19. 

China currently owns over a trillion dollars of US debt [7]. A clear solution to both support United States citizens in a time of economic chaos and incentivize China to clean up its act is to voluntarily refuse to honor a portion of this debt. The specifics must be decided through a thorough cost analysis of COVID-19 on the United States. This step would be radical, yet reasonable. We aim to simply offset the costs borne on innocent citizens onto the regime that is by most accounts responsible for this global pandemic. Just as we can use tariffs as a tool of economic sanctions, we can and should leverage our debt in this way. We would ensure other countries that we will still honor all other debt and interest on such debt. Given the global scale of COVID-19, other countries will accept this, and may even choose to follow in our footsteps. 

COVID-19 has already taken a toll on the entire populous and morale of the United States and the globe at large. It is time to act now to both (1) support Americans in a time of economic turmoil and (2) ensure global pandemics due to irresponsible policy do not ensue every other decade. 

[1] https://www.npr.org/2020/01/29/800725826/why-wet-markets-are-the-perfect-place-to-spread-disease

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPpoJGYlW54

[3] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51364382

[4] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/22/health/virus-corona.html

[5] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/robert-obrien-china-covered-up-coronavirus-costing-world-two-months-national-security-adviser/

[6] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/28/world/asia/china-coronavirus-response-propaganda.html 

[7] https://www.thebalance.com/u-s-debt-to-china-how-much-does-it-own-3306355