Coronavirus impact on US economy uncertain: Peter Navarro

It’s too early to know what kind of impact the coronavirus outbreak will have on the U.S. economy, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said Monday.

The outbreak, which has killed at least 910 and sickened 40,600 people globally, has U.S. companies to halt or drastically reduce operations in China and led to the grounding of flights between the two countries.

“I think we are going to have to wait another couple of weeks or a month to see just what exactly is going on,” Navarro told FOX Business’ Maria Bartiromo.

“There’s also companies that are going back to work in China as we speak. We won’t know for a couple of weeks now whether the virus is going to peak or whether it’s going to spread.”

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While the White House is taking a wait-and-see approach on assessing the impact the coronavirus will have on the U.S. economy, it has already warned that the additional $200 billion of purchases that China agreed to as part of the phase one trade deal will be delayed.

“The export boom from that trade deal will take longer because of the Chinese virus,” White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow told FOX Business’ Maria Bartiromo on Feb. 4, adding that any impact on the U.S. economy will be “minimal.”

But since then, the Federal Reserve and a number of Wall Street banks have warned the outbreak will weigh on U.S. economic growth.

The Federal Reserve said Friday it was on the lookout for "possible spillovers from the effects of the coronavirus." Additionally, economists at investment banks JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs have reduced their first-quarter gross domestic product forecasts.

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JPMorgan cut its first-quarter U.S. growth estimate by 0.25 percentage points and Goldman Sachs lowered its forecast by 0.4 percentage points. Both firms expect the lost growth to be recouped once normal activities are resumed.