French Prime minister Edouard Philippe said Thursday that his administration has seen orders canceled as a result of the global shortage of protective gear. Some French officials are blaming unidentified Americans for swooping in to outbid them as they try to secure supplies.
“A load was taken from us by Americans who overbid on a batch that we had identified,” Valerie Pecresse, regional president of Paris, told broadcaster LCI Thursday. “We pay on delivery because we want to see the masks, while Americans pay cash and without looking. Of course this is more attractive for those who just seek to turn a profit on the back of the world’s distress.” She didn’t say whether the people involved were federal officials, company representatives or private individuals.
The pandemic has left governments, companies, charities and individuals around the world competing for scarce supplies of protective kit and medical equipment as health care systems face an unprecedented surge of highly infectious patients with acute, sometimes deadly respiratory problems.
3M Co. on Friday defended its decision to export respirators from its U.S. facilities to Canada and Latin America, saying there would be “significant humanitarian implications” from halting supplies. President Donald Trump earlier threatened retribution against the company for sending masks and ventilators outside the U.S.
The head of the Grand Est region in France, Jean Rottner, told RTL radio that his representatives had been outbid by rivals from the U.S. when they were trying to source masks.
“On the tarmac, Americans take out cash and pay three or four times the price for our orders, so we really have to fight,” he said. A spokesman for Rottner declined to comment.
With the whole world trying to buy masks from China, it’s possible that there may have been some “incidents” involving the delivery of orders, an official in the President Emmanuel Macron’s office said.
“The United States government has not purchased any masks intended for delivery from China to France,” the U.S. embassy said in an emailed statement. “Reports to the contrary are completely false.”
France has taken delivery of 1.7 billion euros ($1.8 billion) worth of masks already and the volume is set to increase after this week’s air shipments arrived as planned, Macron’s aide said. The president has promised that France will be able to produce all the masks it needs domestically by the end of the year as the administration works to ramp up production.
Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (pix) has warned US President Donald Trump that his decision to stop a shipment of masks intended for Canadian doctors would warrant retaliation, The Independent reported.
On Thursday, Trump ordered manufacturer 3M to stop exporting masks to Latin America and Canada.
Trudeau said that medical goods and services travel across the border both ways, with a significant number of Canadian nurses working in the US.
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