US exported masks, medical gear worth $17.6M to China in Jan-Feb despite pandemic warning: Report
The US leadership’s complicated relationship with China has been exposed once again over procuring the essential medical kit in the times of the coronavirus pandemic that has claimed over 40,000 lives. On one hand, the Donald Trump administration has been lambasting China over the outbreak and going for masks at higher prices, but on the other, it has been revealed that American manufacturers shipped critical face masks and protective medical equipment worth millions of dollars to the Asian country earlier this year despite the pandemic threat looming large.
According to a report in the Washington Post analysis of customs data, the US exported masks and protective medical gear to China worth about $17.6 million, a rise of over 1,000 percent compared to the same in 2019. Data from Public Citizen showed shipment of ventilators and protective goods jumped by triple digits.
The Trump administration has faced massive criticism as the pandemic surged in the US and affected almost 760,000 people, the most for any nation on the planet. States after states have accused the federal government of not providing adequate supply of medical gear which has endangered the medical experts’ community.
Texas’ Democratic Representative Lloyd Doggett, for instance, hit out at the administration saying it did not care for the expert advice and left people to die because there is not enough supply of the PPE (Personal Protective Equipment).
The Trump administration has been repeatedly criticized for its delayed response to the coronavirus outbreak. However, the rise in exports of the medical gear to China still meant only a small fraction of the US’ overall requirement for such crucial equipment.
While the White House security establishment said the danger of a pandemic was real after seven Americans fell ill by the end of January, the federal government moved to encourage the country’s business to sell ‘critical medical products’ to China and Hong Kong quickly. The commerce department published a flier called ‘CS China COVID Procurement Service’ on February 26, the day when deaths caused by the virus reached a tally of 2,770 worldwide, with China being at the forefront.
The US informed China about the new service being offered through an official at the US Embassy in China on March 3. “The CS China healthcare team has been busy working with Chinese government procurement agents and US companies to address local healthcare needs. We created the China and Hong Kong COVID Procurement Service — please find the flyer attached. We welcome you to send this flier to relevant U.S. manufacturers and suppliers,” an email from the official read.
The program was reportedly closed the very next day by the International Trade Administration, a senior commerce official said on the condition of anonymity, according to the WaPo report.
Trump's back and forth policy on medical supply exports
While Trump, who has given a call for an ugly trade war with China in a bid to secure America’s interests first, boasted how the state department was donating tons of medical supplies to China. But in April, he ordered US companies to make medical supplies for the country first and not consumers abroad. He even lashed out at US mask maker 3M for selling medical gear to China on April 2 and threatened to invoke the Defense Production Act to stop their sale to other nations. Yet again, the president changed his course and announced a new agreement whereby 3M could provide masks to foreign customers while increasing the domestic production.
While White House officials said the shipments were being sent for humanitarian and practical reasons, the lack of supply at home left the opposition annoyed. The order for domestic production to meet the soaring demand has not met successfully yet as America’s states were left locking horns with each other in the bidding war for the supplies. N95 masks, which normally cost less than $2, were being sold for $12.
A US Conference of Mayors survey held in March said as high as 90 percent the country’s mayors were facing a shortage of test kits and face masks. More than 80 percent complained that they did not have enough ventilators.
Around mid-March, the Peterson Institute for International Economics called Trump’s trade war with China “misguided” and warned that it only threatened the US’ capacity to fight the pandemic. Citing the administration’s imposing tariffs on China-made medical products, the institute said this might see vital equipment turning expensive when the crisis peaked in the nation.
“In the last two years, Trump’s policy has forced China to divert the sales of these products—including protective gear for doctors and nurses and high-tech equipment to monitor patients—from the United States to other markets, and now the US medical establishment faces looming trouble importing these necessities from other countries, which may be hoarding them to meet their own health crises,” it cautioned.
Well, the accusations brought against the US by its traditional European allies like Germany and France that it is hijacking masks meant for them lend some credence to the alarming viewpoint.