Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Wednesday he expects New York, the financial capital of the U.S. and the epicenter of the nation’s coronavirus outbreak, will take longer to “reopen” its economy than other parts of the country.
Mnuchin, a member of President Donald Trump‘s coronavirus task force, told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” that the administration is eager to restart the areas of the U.S. economy that have been ground to a halt by the deadly pandemic.
But he expects that “we’ll be opening it up based on medical conditions,” rather than prioritizing states’ economic output.
“So obviously we’d like to open up as much GDP as we can,” Mnuchin said, but “my expectations are that places like New York are going to take a little bit longer.”
Trump tweeted later Wednesday that the U.S. will reopen “sooner rather than later.”
“Once we OPEN UP OUR GREAT COUNTRY,” he said, “the horror of the Invisible Enemy, except for those that sadly lost a family member or friend, must be quickly…
