Even as the Donald Trump’s White House has adopted an America First approach to sourcing critical medical supplies related to countering the coronavirus pandemic with steps like blocking exports of such equipment to other countries, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has warned the American President that taking such a measure will be a “mistake.”
The face-off between the neighbours has come about as the United States has asked manufacturers of N95 medical-grade face masks and ventilators, urgently required in both nations, to give priority to orders from the Federal Emergency Management Agency or FEMA.
One major company in the field, 3M, in fact released a statement in this regard, “The Administration also requested that 3M cease exporting respirators that we currently manufacture in the United States to the Canadian and Latin American markets.”
This state of affairs led to the rebuttal from Trudeau during his daily media interaction in Ottawa, as he said, “It would be a mistake to create blockages or reduce the amount of back-and-forth trade in essential goods and services, including medical goods, across our border.”
This matter has arisen even as Canada has received a shipments totalling nearly 11 million face masks and has announced that it will be leveraging Amazon Canada’s distribution network to get urgently needed medical material to cities and provinces across the nation.
{{/usCountry}}This matter has arisen even as Canada has received a shipments totalling nearly 11 million face masks and has announced that it will be leveraging Amazon Canada’s distribution network to get urgently needed medical material to cities and provinces across the nation.
{{/usCountry}}Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, meanwhile, said the Government was “working very hard on getting those shipments from 3M” and also from a “diversity of suppliers around the world.”