Graham to Chinese Ambassador: ‘If You Don’t Shut Those Wet Markets Down, Our Trading Relationship Is Going to Change’

Tuesday on Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) urged the Chinese government to shut down wet markets that offer meat from exotic animals, which he argued transmit viruses from animals to humans, including the COVID-19/coronavirus.

“I’m going to write a letter to the World Health Organization and to the Chinese ambassador asking them to close the Chinese wet markets,” Graham said. “These are open-air markets where they sell monkey. They sell bat. We think we — this whole thing started from a transmission from a bat to a human. About the last three or four pandemics have come from the Chinese wet markets. I don’t think this came from a Chinese military lab, but these wet markets are gross, they’re just absolutely disgusting, selling exotic animals that transmit viruses from animals to human beings. Those things need to shut down.”

When asked if he thought that would do any good, Graham said he would threaten the U.S.-China trading relationship.

“I’m going to write a letter to the Chinese ambassador saying, if you don’t shut those wet markets down, our trading relationship is going to change,” he replied. “The source of this virus is the Chinese wet markets. But when you look — have doctors who come on and ask them, how many diseases have come from China through these wet markets where you intermingle all kinds of exotic animals, it’s just really a gross display of how you prepare food, that needs to stop. What can China do to help the world? Shut those markets down.”

Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor