04-20-2020, 02:35 AM
Those PPE were shipped in early February. Trump's "phase one trade deal" with China had just been signed in the middle of January. Basically Trump had managed to cobble together a trade truce with China that was going to be "proof" that his tariffs against China - that Americans paid for through higher prices - led to a big win that he could yammer on about in the upcoming election. Part of the agreement was that China would buy a couple hundred billion dollars of American goods over the next couple of years. So... I suspect that in early February that Trump was of the mind that the Chinese were mostly in the "good guys" category and he wanted to show them that he would reward them for their good behavior.
In early February if the epidemiologists in the government thought that the Chinese had some real prospects of containing the virus, then it made sense to help them do that by sending supplies. But I'm betting they didn't think then that the Chinese would contain it. If so, they should have been recommending that the U.S. keep the supplies and ramp up production of more as quickly as possible.
I guess what I'm saying is that there is a fair circumstantial case to be made that giving those supplies to China then was at least as much a political decision based on the context of economic relations with China as it was a medical-humanitarian decision. (I have a hard time believing Trump would do anything primarily for humanitarian reasons.)
In early February if the epidemiologists in the government thought that the Chinese had some real prospects of containing the virus, then it made sense to help them do that by sending supplies. But I'm betting they didn't think then that the Chinese would contain it. If so, they should have been recommending that the U.S. keep the supplies and ramp up production of more as quickly as possible.
I guess what I'm saying is that there is a fair circumstantial case to be made that giving those supplies to China then was at least as much a political decision based on the context of economic relations with China as it was a medical-humanitarian decision. (I have a hard time believing Trump would do anything primarily for humanitarian reasons.)