Thursday on Fox Business Network’s “The Evening Edit,” White House trade adviser Peter Navarro discussed how China could be using the coronavirus pandemic to strengthen its position around the globe.

Navarro laid out a timeline for host Liz MacDonald explaining how at once, China became an importer of personal protective equipment (PPE). As the virus has spread, it has used that PPE to earn a profit, or as a diplomatic tool to advance diplomacy.

“We get patient zero probably mid-November, probably from the Wuhan bioweapons lab,” Navarro said. “Gets sick early December, we get all sorts of people infected. China knows there’s human-to-human transmission in early December, but for six weeks, they hide that from the world behind the shield of the World Health Organization. What did they do during that? According to their own Chinese customs data, they went from a net exporter of personal protective equipment to a huge net importer. They basically vacuumed up all the PPE, particularly the masks, the gloves, the goggles, in the world. What did that mean, Liz? It meant when the people Milan, or New York, or Detroit, or New Orleans needed that there wasn’t enough for them. That’s all on China.”

“Now, what were they doing?” he continued. “Middle of January they were coming here and signing a trade deal without telling us about the virus. And then, they were also secretly trying to get a patent for this drug Remdesivir which has significant therapeutic potential. And what are they doing now? Yes, they want to maybe hoard all the PPE. Use it — use it, basically sell it to us at profiteering prices or use it as a diplomatic weapon to force countries in Europe to do — to deny that this is — the virus is from China. And there’s a paper that they did, a whitepaper that everybody should read that goes back to right after the crisis, Liz — the financial crisis, where it explains what China needs to do after a crisis in order to consolidate power and take over the world.

“This is what we’re up against,” Navarro added. “And obviously, it’s very difficult to believe anything the Chinese Communist Party tells us. But we are in perilous times. In the meantime, what’s really important, I think, for us to focus on is getting the economy back on its feet at the same time that we do our best to protect the men and women at the frontlines — the health care workers — as well as everybody else here in America. And that’s — that’s what I’m focused on. I’m focused on supply chain issues. I’m focused on helping this president create jobs for America.”

Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor