Coronavirus: trade war with China weakens crucial links in US medical supply chain
- Trump administration hardliners resist medical supply imports despite Covid-19’s toll
- ‘The main distinction between Europe and the US in terms of lack of preparedness is that ours is more self-inflicted. We put tariffs on all of those products’
“There will be inexorable pressure to relax the tariffs. But the administration is going to hold the line as long as they possibly can because they see this is so fundamental to their trade policy,” said Vanessa Sciarra, vice-president of trade and investment policy with the National Foreign Trade Council. “There’s a lot of internal debate that you can’t give China something for nothing and how to go forward.”
A procedure for settling disputes, promoted by Trump in the December deal, is “supposed to hold a stick over the Chinese,” she added. “It undermines his whole plan if the US starts unilaterally undercutting the agreement.”
As Trump weathers growing pressure – after denying for weeks that the coronavirus was a serious threat – the administration has made modest concessions on Chinese medical imports, dropped quietly into the Federal Register. On March 10 and 12, it temporarily and without fanfare lifted tariffs on protective clothing, gloves and medical goggles, among other items.
And late Friday night, with the pandemic raging, the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) launched a feedback channel for medical supply importers that believe tariffs should be eased, adding: “This comment process does not replace the current exclusion process.”