Hans Rustad 
Peter Navarro som leder programmet Defence Production Act. Foto: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters/Scanpix
I de seks ukene hvor Beijing forsøkte å undertrykke informasjon om viruset, hamstret Kina verneutstyr fra verdensmarkedet.
Kina er en av verdens største produsenter av verneutstyr og følgelig en storeksportør. Men i januar begynte Kina å netto-importere verneutstyr. Kommunistregimet støvsuget verdensmarkedet for verneutstyr.
Det er Trumps handelsrepresentant Peter Navarro som sier dette til Mario Bartimoro i hennes søndagsprogram på Fox News.
Bartimoro har selv fortalt hvordan hun hørte om at et skip på vei til USA med verneutstyr ble tilbakekalt til Kina.
Dette var ikke fordi Kina manglet verneutstyr, men fordi regimet visste at det kom til å bli skrikende mangel på verneutstyr og at landene ikke var klar over hva som ventet dem. Det hadde Beijing sørget for ved ikke å fortelle verden om viruset og da det ble nødt, holdt de ikke tilbake reisende ut av Wuhan til utlandet.
Kina tjente store summer på verneutstyr da prisene gikk gjennom taket. Dessuten kunne Kina fremstå som humanitær og gavmild.
Er det virkelig mulig at Kina kan være så kynisk, spør Bartimoro. Navarro sier han har sett det med sine egne øyne.
“First of all, the virus was spawned in China. Second of all, they hid the virus behind the shield of the World Health Organization. The third thing they did was basically hoard personal protective equipment (PPE) and now they’re profiteering from it,” Navarro told host Maria Bartiromo, referencing the fact that many states have been dealing with a shortage of PPE for health care workers during the coronavirus crisis.
Når det synker inn hos amerikanerne at Beijing med viten og vilje lot viruset bli spredd ut i verden, også til USA, hvordan vil de reagere?
He added that “more importantly, we know that for a critical six-week period of time, China used its influence at the World Health Organization to hide the virus from the world. This was a time where that virus could have been contained in Wuhan; instead, 5 million Chinese people went out from Wuhan and propagated the virus around the world.”
Det er en kynisme ute og går her som er vanskelig å fatte.
Navarro went on to explain what he thinks “should be very disturbing to every American.”
“During that period of time, that six-week interval when they were hiding this virus from the world, China went from a net exporter of personal protective equipment, they are the largest producer of that in the world, to a large net importer,” Navarro said. “They basically went around and vacuumed up virtually all of the PPE around the world, including a lot from this country, which was for humanitarian reasons sharing our PPE with them, and what that did was leave people in New York, Milan, and everywhere in-between defenseless when it came time to have that PPE.”
Kina selger masker som koster 50 cent for åtte dollar stykket til amerikanske sykehus. I januar hadde USA gitt av sine egne lagre til Kina. Det kan bli vanskelig for amerikanske selskap å bli værende i Kina.
“Now what’s happening today, which is equally alarming, is China is sitting on that hoard of PPE where it cornered the market and is profiteering,” he continued. “I have cases that are coming across my desk where $0.50 masks made in China are being sold to hospitals here in America for as much as $8.”
Store amerikanske selskaper som 3M og Honeywell, begge med produksjon av verneutstyr i Kina, varslet Det hvite hus om Kinas eksportrestriksjoner.
Executives from 3M and Honeywell told US officials that the Chinese government in January began blocking exports of N95 respirators, booties, gloves and other supplies produced by their factories in China, according to a senior White House official.
China paid the manufacturers their standard wholesale rates, but prohibited the vital items from being sold to anyone else, the official said.
Around the same time that China cracked down on PPE exports, official data posted online shows that it imported 2.46 billion pieces of “epidemic prevention and control materials” between Jan. 24 and Feb. 29, the White House official said.
The gear, valued at nearly $1.2 billion, included more than 2 billion masks and more than 25 million “protective clothing” items that came from countries in the European Union, as well as Australia, Brazil and Cambodia, the official said. (NY Post)
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