DeSantis says China needs to 'pay' for trying to 'screw over the rest of the world' by hoarding PPE

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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis called out China on Wednesday, accusing the Communist nation of trying to hoard personal protective equipment (PPE) from the rest of the world during the coronavirus pandemic.

"As many people know, this PPE was a major crunch, particularly in March," DeSantis said during a press conference. "China had known what was going on; they specifically bought up a lot of this stuff, really to try to screw over the rest of the world, which they’re going to need to pay for doing that."

A four-page Department of Homeland Security (DHS) intelligence report dated May 1 and obtained by The Associated Press states thatChinese leaders “intentionally concealed the severity” of the pandemic from the world in early January.

The report also says China held off informing the World Health Organization (WHO) that the coronavirus “was a contagion” for much of January until it could order medical supplies from abroad — and that its imports of face masks and surgical gowns and gloves increased sharply.

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Both Missouri and Mississippi have filed lawsuits against the Beijing government, arguing that it inflicted a financial toll and cost American lives.

At the end of April, Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt told "Cavuto Live" that China opened itself to a lawsuit by "hoarding" PPE. Schmitt argued that the Foreign Soverign Immunities Act, which typically protects soverign countries from legal action, contained an exception that allows prosecution in relation to commercial activity.

"There’s a commercial activity exception, so we allege that their handling, with the Wuhan virology lab, the hoarding of PPE -- they went from a net exporter to a net importer of PPE -- all the while keeping the world in the dark and then also running the hospital system, those are objective commercial activities that we believe fits squarely into the exception under the [Foreign] Sovereign Immunities Act, which is why we believe our claim has merit," Schmitt added.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told ABC's "This Week" Sunday that he had no reason to believe that the virus was deliberately spread.

“Remember, China has a history of infecting the world, and they have a history of running substandard laboratories," Pompeo added. "These are not the first times that we’ve had a world exposed to viruses as a result of failures in a Chinese lab.

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"And so, while the intelligence community continues to do its work, they should continue to do that, and verify so that we are certain, I can tell you that there is a significant amount of evidence that this came from that laboratory in Wuhan."

Beijing has repeatedly pushed back on U.S. accusations that the outbreak was China’s fault, pointing to many missteps by American officials in their own fight against the outbreak.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.