And one way or another, Americans want China to pay — big-league, one might say. Almost the same percentage now wants the US to “change our trading relationship with China,” as the Washington Examiner notes:

China’s keeping the coronavirus secret from the world as the outbreak began has united Democrats and Republicans who now want the communist nation punished and exported American jobs returned to the USA.

The anger is so high that three quarters of likely voters in a new McLaughin & Associates survey want America’s trading relationship with China junked.

The survey found that despite the political battle over how the virus was described initially as the generic coronavirus, “China virus,” or “Wuhan virus,” Americans agree that China lied about it and failed to share key data that could have been used to slow it.

And, more significantly, Americans want to end the U.S. practice of sending key manufacturing to China and the reliance on Chinese technology and medical equipment.

Not only do Americans want to end outsourcing to China, they want the government to mandate — and subsidize! — the transfer of those supply lines back to the US. That gets support from 72% of Americans, a rather eye-popping figure:

This gets majority support in all three political demos, but oddly, Democrats have the weakest level of support at 57/21. Among Republicans it’s 84/9 and it’s 75/14 among independents, however, and it’s higher in every other demo. Even among self-professed liberals it gets a 61/19 rating. (Maybe we should be surprised that subsidizing the transfer of supply chains gets an 84/9 among conservatives, though.)

We see similar reactions to the need to change our trading relationship with China — almost identical, actually. Three-quarters see the need to end our dependence on “health equipment and face masks” too, with 40% wanting to end all of it, including 52% of Republicans. Only 25% of Democrats want to end all of the reliance on China’s production for PPE, but another 37% want to end some of it, and only 24% don’t want any change. That’s the highest no-change ratings in the demos, which means that the impulse for change is going to be overwhelming. No one will get elected this year by defending a partnership with China, which might be a problem for Democrats and their presidential nominee that has often defended the US-China trading partnership status quo ante.

Curiously, though, only 59% believe we should withdraw all of our manufacturing from China. While that position leads in every demo, in a few it only gets a plurality, such as Democrats (43/40), liberals (45/40), African-Americans (43/35), and those who disapprove of Donald Trump (43/39). It gets majority support everywhere else, though. “America First” will sound much better the second time around, it seems.

It’s tough to decide how much of this is common sense, after seeing our vulnerabilities on critical-product supply chains, and how much of this is punitive. It’s certainly a mix of those, but since McLaughlin & Associates never asks any questions in that regard, the precise calculation will remain elusive. In practical terms, it probably doesn’t matter in the short run, but it might in the longer run. If this is motivated by a sudden revelation of vulnerability, then it might have a Pearl Harbor effect for decades, as the US made itself into a superpower to prevent any more sneak attacks from our enemies. If it’s punitive only, one has to wonder how long the public will pay the higher prices for consumer goods these policies will produce.