I have a strange question about the US exporting masks to China

[jmowreader]

They make masks in China - probably a lot more than we make in the US. Why did Trump feel the need to export the ones we have here?

[NCjack]

1. Perhaps, to create a temporary shortage HERE.

[Under The Radar]

2. More than half of the worlds mask supply is made in China

Mask being sent to China, there must be a story inside of that story

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-10/the-global-mask-shortage-may-be-about-to-get-much-worse

[gab13by13]

3. Try ordering a mask on Amazon,

mid June delivery date.

Unless you order an Adinikas mask for 8.95 but reusable, the delivery date is April 17.

[Golden Raisin]

5. Gloves too.

[Faux pas]

4. It's

just part of putin's plan

[Igel]

6. Europe had the same need.

Because there was a shortage for immediate use in China.

When you think "containment" in a pandemic scenario, you do everything possible to fight it there so that you never have to fight it here.

When there was an Ebola outbreak in Africa we didn't send them stuff just because we thought they were poor Africans. We sent them stuff they needed because they needed it.

That was one shipment, I believe. Another is famous because it happened later, when there was a need here, but that was private donations. Not "Trump." By any means.

There were others, but the language in the first-hand descriptions of what happened seem to say that emergency stockpiles held by outside the US USAID were used to send shipments to other countries. You'd think the top officials there would find that somewhere between criminal and tone deaf, but USAID is responsible for coordinating aid outward. That's what they live for, of course, and I'll leave it to the judgmental and the moralists to decide if it's more politically acceptably moral to keep what you have when your team's under threat or to share what little you have, even at risk of hurting your own.