Peter Navarro, the White House trade adviser, issued a memo of warning at the end of January. The memo cautioned the White House that the coronavirus had the potential to cost the United States trillions of dollars if we didn’t place a travel ban on China.

Per his memo, dated January 29, 2020, Navarro requested a travel ban be placed on China immediately. His predicted loss, due to the coronavirus, ended up being $3.8 trillion.

The NYT first broke the news, reporting the details of the memo on Monday evening. Axios later published the full memo, showing that his memo was addressed to NSC and sent out just days before President Trump placed a travel ban on China.

“The clear dominant strategy is an immediate travel ban on China,” noted Navarro, adding that the virus could claim the lives of as many as a half a million Americans.

The point of Navarro’s memo was to clarify that the financial cost of enforcing a travel ban would be minuscule in comparison to what the cost would be if we did nothing at all. Just two days (January 31, 2020) after Navarro’s, Trump executed the travel ban.

Navarro cautioned officials that coronavirus would not look like the “seasonal flu.” Navarro did this at a time when many health officials were comparing statistics of the coronavirus to those of the flu.

In a follow-up memo on February 23, 2020, Navara advised officials on the immediate need to acquire large amounts of PPE (personal protective equipment) to supply to medical professionals that were combatting this virus.

In the same memo, Navarro advised that this virus “could infect as many as 100 million Americans, with a loss of life of as many as 1-2 million souls.”

His recommendation for the White House was to start the process of devoting billions of dollars in attempt to prepare for this onslaught.

Navarro closed with, “time is of the essence for all points of the PPE, treatment, vaccine, and diagnostics!”