(USA Features) Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Thursday that declining coronavirus cases would mean the U.S. could begin reopening businesses by early May.
Mnuchin was asked by a CNBC pundit about whether the country could be “open for business” next month.
“I do,” he replied.
“I think as soon as the president feels comfortable with the medical issues, we are making everything necessary that American companies and American workers can be open for business and that they have the liquidity to operate their business in the interim,” Mnuchin explained.
The president has expressed an interest in getting Americans back to work “sooner rather than later,” but his health experts continue to warn against lifting social distancing restrictions too soon.
That said, more than 16 million Americans have lost their jobs or have been laid off over the past three weeks due to coronavirus-related business closures and work stoppages.
Trump has said that is not sustainable.
Meanwhile, senior White House officials have gone on the record and expressed optimism in interviews and briefings as the virus appears to have peaked domestically.
On Wednesday, Trump expressed there is “light at the end of the tunnel.”
“I think we can say that we have to be on that down side of that slope and heading to a very strong direction that this thing is gone. We could do it in phases,” the president said when asked how he would like to see the country reopened.
“Treasury’s Mnuchin says America could reopen businesses beginning in May…as long as the economy and Trump are suitably destroyed by that time” There. Fixed it.