In debate, Harris signaled a sharper break with Trump administration over China

Responding to Pence’s comments, Senator Harris highlighted the fact that the United States had a team of experts on the ground in China to monitor disease outbreaks that had been withdrawn by the Trump administration. She’s right: Upon coming into office, the administration reduced the number of U.S. Centers for Disease Control and National Institutes of Health staff in China and shut down the National Science Foundation office in Beijing. As Jennifer Huang Bouey, an epidemiologist and Georgetown University professor has explained, “five years earlier, CDC and NIH officials would have been on the ground in Wuhan.”