Hotel executive says US should be tougher on China for pandemic costs

Government
Bennet1
Monty Bennett | Submitted

ORGANIZATIONS IN THIS STORY

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Have a concern or an opinion about this story? Click below to share your thoughts.
Send a message

Community Newsmaker

Know of a story that needs to be covered? Pitch your story to The Washington D.C. Business Daily.
Community Newsmaker

A national hotel chain executive said he is fed up with the way the United States is dealing with China in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

Monty Bennett, chairman of The Ashford Group of Companies, said he strongly suspects the Chinese purposefully unleashed the virus as a form of biological warfare. Bennett said he wants to sue China to recover some of his corporation’s losses. The Ashford Group, which owns and/or operates more than 130 properties across the nation, has seen a deep cut in business, forcing it to furlough 95 percent of its 7,000 employees.

“China, through its negligence or malfeasance, released a deadly virus into the world and into our country,” Bennett told Washington D.C. Business Daily on Friday. “This virus has caused many deaths and is causing trillions of dollars of economic damage. They are not our friends. Why isn’t our government going after them?

“All I hear is how President, aka dictator, XI is a friend of Trump’s. Why is he a friend? He’s a murderous thug that let loose this virus, then hid it as much as possible. That’s a friend?”

Bennett, 54, said he seriously wonders if the coronavirus a bio-weapon.

“It very well could be,” he said. "Scientists have suggested it. Some have suggested otherwise but with the recent arrest of a Harvard scientist for cooperating with China, who can we trust? They have compromised our academic institutions.”

Leading scientists said they doubt this is a biological weapon. Kristian Andersen, a computational biologist at Scripps Research in La Jolla, Calif., told National Geographic that COVID-19 has ”subtle flaws indicative of natural selection. For instance, coronaviruses use what are known as spike proteins, which look like heads of broccoli, to bind and access cellular ‘doorways’ called receptors. It’s how the viruses infect animal cells. Experiments have shown that the novel coronavirus strongly binds with a human receptor called ACE2, but the interaction isn’t optimal, the authors explain.”

Anderson said it appears the virus was transferred from an animal to a human in November. It is far from a perfect bio-weapon designed in a lab, he said.

“This isn’t what somebody who wanted to build the perfect virus would have picked,” Andersen said.

Bennett said he doesn’t trust the Chinese.

“Absolutely not. It’s ridiculous that the media and others compare the stats in China to those of Italy and others,” he said. “We all know that the Chinese government lies repeatedly. Why would we believe them about this? There are all kinds of rumors and other stories out there such as 200,000 dead in Wuhan alone, or crematoriums runnng flat-out for weeks burning the dead. Who knows what’s true? We do know that the Chinese government will stifle any news that they don’t like, so why should we even quote or believe the news they do put out?”

Bennett, a Dallas resident, attended the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing and has one lingering question about the Chinese government: “I’m wondering why they send all these diseases our way every few years,” he said.

On Thursday, China announced it would prohibit most foreigners from entering its nation in fear of a second major outbreak brought in by people crossing its borders.

In February, Larry Kudlow, director of the U.S. National Economic Council, said he felt China was not being forthright and has murky “motives” in how it reveals statistics of the number of infections.

“We are a little disappointed that we haven’t been invited in and we’re a little disappointed in the lack of transparency coming from the Chinese,” Kudlow said.

Bennett said he also is unhappy with coverage of the pandemic. He doesn’t feel the media is being fair and unbiased.

“Not really. They seem more concerned about making sure the president doesn’t use the term ‘Chinese virus’ rather than finding out how this virus originated,” he said. “They fear it may trace back to the country they love — the brutal communist regime of China. I don’t know how it’s okay to use the term ‘Spanish flu’ or ‘West Nile virus’ for decades but now the term ‘Chinese virus’ is off limits. It’s beyond ridiculous. They should focus on how this scourge began.”

He also is not pleased with the U.S. government. He has never sought office and said he has supported a lot of candidates over the years, mostly conservatives and libertarians. Right now, he is displeased with the Trump White House.

“Yes, what is our administration doing about getting to the bottom of this?” Bennett asked. “Why does the federal government prevent me from suing China for damages through the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976? If it were my neighbor that did this, I could go pursue damages, but my own government, in their wisdom, blocks its own citizens from pursuing a semi-hostile foreign power for their seemingly bad acts. Whose side is our government on?”

ORGANIZATIONS IN THIS STORY

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Have a concern or an opinion about this story? Click below to share your thoughts.
Send a message

Community Newsmaker

Know of a story that needs to be covered? Pitch your story to The Washington D.C. Business Daily.
Community Newsmaker

MORE NEWS