Mike Huckabee: Coronavirus pandemic exposes the 'perils of globalism'

The coronavirus pandemic has exposed the "perils of globalism" to the American people, Fox News contributor and former Arkansas Republican Gov. Mike Huckabee said Thursday.

Appearing on "Outnumbered" with hosts Harris Faulkner, Melissa Francis, Fox News contributor Dr. Nicole Saphier, and Fox Business host Dagen McDowell, Huckabee said that President Trump was correct in his message to not trust the Chinese government. 

"They haven't been a fair trading partner. They've not been honest. They've cheated. They violated the [World Trade Organization]. They've done everything in their power to try to game the system for their own advantage," he stated.

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In a classified report released to the White House, U.S. intelligence officers concluded that China has concealed the extent of the coronavirus outbreak in its country, under-reporting both total cases and deaths it’s suffered from the disease.

Bloomberg, which first reported the news, cited the officers who they said alerted the administration last week to Beijing's misleading numbers. Two of the three sources called the numbers flat-out fake.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, China has been accused of multiple coverups. It has shifted its timeline on what it knew and when it knew and has gone after critics, physicians, and whistleblowers trying to sound the alarm.

In addition, China’s National Health Commission acknowledged Wednesday that it had not been including patients without symptoms in its overall coronavirus infection count and would begin to do so. Beijing updated its data Wednesday to include 1,367 asymptomatic cases; of those,130 were reported in the last day, Fortune reported.

"And what we're seeing here -- it's not as an economic issue," Huckabee explained. "It's killing people. People all around the world are dying."

"And, how many might have been saved if we'd have had better information come out of China early on?" he asked. "Thank goodness the president stopped the flow of people from China way back in January. This could have been much worse." 

However, Huckabee noted, the United States may have learned something in the process about relying on China and other countries for critical supply chains for medical equipment and pharmaceutical products.  

"But, maybe we've learned something about the perils of globalism and the idea of America being a country that can feed itself, that can fuel itself, and that can actually fund itself -- [it] is very important," he concluded. "And, by the way, fight for itself. Make its own weapons of self-defense -- whether they are military weapons or medical weapons to fight disease." 

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The Chinese outbreak was first reported late last year. It did not reach reports in the United States until mid-January when the first patient was diagnosed at an urgent care clinic in Snohomish County, Wash.

Now the number of confirmed cases worldwide is over 950,000 with just under 50,000 deaths. On Wednesday, the United States surpassed 210,000 reported cases with just over 5,100 deaths. China had recorded just over 82,000 cases before their numbers began to plateau. 

Fox News' Barnini Chakraborty contributed to this report.