Short of Supplies Now
To alleviate medical supply shortages, the Trump administration has opened up a 3-Month Comment Window for companies to apply for tariff exemptions on medical supplies from China.
The U.S. Trade Representative, in a statement late Friday, invited the public, businesses and government agencies to submit “comments on possible further modifications to remove duties from additional medical care products.”
USTR said the comment period will run until June 25 and won’t replace the process to request exclusions from the tariffs. Comments submitted “are limited to comments on products subject to the tariff actions and relevant to the medical response to the coronavirus,” the USTR said.
“To facilitate timely consideration of possible modifications, interested persons should submit comments as promptly as possible,” the agency said.
Trump said earlier this week that tariff relief wasn’t something he was considering. “There’s no reason to do that. China is paying us billions and billions of dollars in tariffs,” he said in a news conference Wednesday. “I can’t imagine Americans asking for that.”
Comments Until June 25! Timely?
We need supplies now.
Trump’s amazing response is to open up a 3-month window for comments.
Wow.
In case you missed it, please check out the Best Coronavirus Timeline Synopsis Ever Put Together.
It is a powerful collection of all of Trump’s coronavirus gaffes in one spot. It will take less than 2 minutes to play.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
You need to review Kudlow’s interview on CNBC today. Never have I heard such poor excuses for an administration being way behind the curve.
Isn’t the three-month comment window the window that is legally required to change tariff rates, so there is no legal alternative here?
Mish, you’re killing me. I used to enjoy your take on the world but since Trump got elected, wow, you’re singularly focused. You know, everything in the world is NOT his fault! He doesn’t get a lot of “style” points from me but he’s accomplished more positive things in 3 years that his predecessors did since Reagan. Obama got mega points from the press/celebrities, he destroyed much of our freedom and independence.
Didn’t China just threaten us with not providing the antibiotics we were stupid enough to outsource to them? Trump needs to announce the immediate construction of mask-manufactruring facilities, viral pandemic be damned. BTW – China is hoarding the masks it makes,. BTW – there are youtube videos which will show you how to make your own masks. Take a little initiative and stop relying on the @#$%#$!! Government.
We are weeks past the time from when Trump should have been removed from office via the 25th Amendment. Many people will die due both to Trump’s failure to act, and the failure of the people around him to act.
Please read the the CDC report to congress from 2018 located at
http://www.cdc.gov/washington/testimony/2018/t20180615.htm
Most importantly read the 3rd bullet point of conclusion at the end
I’m sure the Chinese govt is going to make it a priority to get America all the supplies it needs! If dealing with this outbreak means less production due to quarantines or travel restrictions then I’m sure China will give America a priority claim on whatever inventory they produce.
Yea, /sarc.
Might be time to kiss china’s ass. Won’t happen just saying. We’d go bomb the convoy and steal the bounty first.
How does a US agency named CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL not have a huge stockpile of personal protective gear for a event such as this? The CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL is THE expert in pandemics, has a annual budget of $11 Billion,
and over 10,000 employees.
But the CENTERS for DISEASE CONTROL spent money on a visitor center that includes a 70’x40′ video display screen, a waterfall and gardens a museum and provides tours.
A 2007 US senate review of the Centers for Disease Control had this as one of its 6 recommendations-
CDC should reprioritize its funding and efforts toward preventing and controlling diseases. Period.
It’s Trump’s fault!
that is probably too much for you to read and understand so here’s a nice, short, to-the-point quote for you:
“Things are going to be getting very real this year, even as some continue to deny reality, to an almost astonishing degree of self-absorption and denial.” –Jesse
It’s funny… these are the same people that deny climate change. Hopefully natural selection will sort this out for us.
“It’s funny… these are the same people that deny climate change. ”
Climate alarmism is about imposing socialism, not about climate. The elitists have no intention of cutting their carbon footprint. Funny about that.
So this Pandemic Response group were JUST about to order the millions of masks, gloves and personal protection gear that a Pandemic Response team might think important before they were fired ( that’s not exactly correct, they were released from the NSC and they returned to their previous jobs in government).
Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer mentioned in your quaint little story currently works at USAID because the year he worked at the pandemic response group served the American public so well.
High time to rid ourselves of utterly useless government bureaucracies like the CDC. Another bunch of idiots high on the list of useless bureaucracies is the FED.
This makes me ask:
Why would someone not choose to make those masks in the US prior to this outbreak?
Of course the simple answer is “money ” – as in – they can’t make enough money doing it here.
But why? Why is it not possible to make the masks here and be profitable doing it?.
Too often in the past when faced with this problem, our answer has been “force” as in: raise tariffs high enough so that we create a market here for a product.
And we end up here – needing something we can’t get at any price if the foreign suppliers decide to shut off our access.
So why? Why isn’t there a market for products to be made here without resorting to the force of taxation?
If we can solve for that, we can fix the problem. And not just for masks, but for a whole host of products.
“Why would someone not choose to make those masks in the US prior to this outbreak?”
Because anyone attempting to do so here, would be paying way above free market rents, way above free country legal fees and insurance, way above free country taxes…. And have to pay way above free country salaries to attract staff, since staff couldn’t otherwise afford to live, since they also have to pay way above free country rents etc.. All of them while having the fruits of their labor being stolen by debasement, at an ever accelerating rate.
All in order to ensure banksters, ambulance chasers, public unionistas, and other racketeers in FIRE and other leeching fields, can live like kings without producing a lick of value whatsoever.
When you have a country where anyone who produce valuable stuff, have to drag around an army of deadweight, it simply gets too hard and expensive to produce anything here. So people don’t. Rationally choosing to sit on their rears and screaming for The Fed to “make my house go up” instead.
Yeah I already knew the answers – I was just trying to spark the thinking of those who may not understand why a lot of products are not made here.
Read somewhere recently that instead of pointing out facts to people and trying to change their thinking, you should ask questions in an effort to allow them to reach their own conclusions.
So yeah…
Robots would be a way to eliminate wages. I suppose the only problem would be, without wages, people couldn’t buy the robot’s product.
China on the other hand, is the worlds largest adopter of industrial robots….
Let’s face it, our manufacturing has been moved overseas because it’s cheaper to make stuff anywhere else. And while everyone laments that fact, our companies are still allowed to outsource products to countries that have no intellectual property rights, don’t have anyone overseeing child labor or any type of labor laws for that matter and governments that don’t care about their people. They will turn a blind eye to deaths whether to job accidents or pandemics.
The world has become a nations of “I want everything” and I want it cheap, which is a human trait, I guess. While Trump dropped the ball on getting out in front of the Corona Virus outbreak, I don’t think that President Hillary would have been any better. Heck, Obama missed the H1N1 Pandemic by 8 months. Politicians are Politicians and there isn’t a nickel’s worth of difference in an R or a D. Everyone can’t rant & rave all they want now, but until the US stops electing and re-electing these clowns, all of them…. It ain’t gonna change
I guess the only two manufacturers in the World of the testing swabs are both located in Milan Italy, of all places.
Invade Italy
Send the Army or Marines over their to get supplies or run the factory and let’s get the supplies back to the USA.
Don’t tell Trump… he will put a tariff on them.
That’s not social distancing.
Am I missing something. ??? How in the hell would tariff s on or off affect supply???? We will buy whatever is available at any price. It appears that you chronic winy TDs ers
have nothing else better to do but constantly bitch
Please f*cking Think before accusing someone of TDS – then look into the mirror to see who has it.
We are under supply constraints and don’t you think it would help if supply was available at cheaper prices?
And if you think a 3-month window is timely your mind has turned to mush assuming you had one.
I am tired of this crap.
Yeah, let’s pay more in a time of crisis.
WTF is the matter with you?
What is the matter with you??? Even if there weren’t tariffs they would probably raise prices, also they are going to make sure their own people are taken care of first. You have a one track mind when it comes to tariffs, not even going to bother with valid arguments with you. There is now way in HELL that tariffs are hindering the supply of any medical equipment. Get a grip. Three month window, yeah it shouldn’t even be discussed at this point but you know how inarticulate Trump is and can’t think on his feet when caught off guard.
My thoughts also HMK.
In Europe there is all sorts of difficulty going on for lack of basic medical supplies also, lack of test kits etc. Tarrifs earlier on this equipment would have kept national production capability, now there is very little. Alternatively government builds strategic manufacturing capability, but still tarrifs are not the barrier to trade for the goods in question. Many other countries have even halted all exports full stop of nescessary equipment to ensure national supply.
Tariffs on what, though?
N95 masks? Then, you would just push the shortage down the stack, to components of N95 masks. And if you tariffed those as well, you’d push shortages further down the stack….
America, like China, is a huge country, and could conceivably produce most going into an N95 things itself, from the petroleum going into polyester and upwards. But small European countries… Andorra??
And the end result of it all, would be more expensive N95 masks worldwide. Hence less use of N95 masks world wide. Hence less production of N95 masks world wide. Hardly the way to deal with shortages….
The way to avoid shortages of stuff, is to produce, and distribute, them as efficiently as possible. Which results in as cheaply as possible. Hence as many as possible will be able to afford them. Hence as many as possible will be produced.
Short term demand shocks over and above running demand, can then be addressed by strategic stockpiles of potentially highly critical and strategically important specific things. Not by Andorrans permanently operating their own oil well despite having no meaningful amount of oil, in order to produce polyester to produce a million other intermediates required to produce n95 masks.
Andorra is not a fair example, and stockpiling is the better option. Shelf life is five or ten years, so an alternative maybe is a mothballed manufacturing capability turnkey ready. The argument of tarrifs returning manufacturing instead of using most efficient supply looks like this :
You pay Chinese wages buying from China, local Americans buy cheaper goods but employment shifts to often less productive enterprise, your house of cards. Chinese wages go to CCP and are invested in that house of cards and other countries. When the piper needs paying the base supply of goods is owned by China, and the piper wants goods, not dollars or a new app , the piper wants masks or he cannot go outside his house. This is strategic, and who controls physical supply when it is in desperate need is very strategic. Wars start because of circumstance like this, because the advantage is used by one, or the other becomes desperate. The west is desperate now. So it is the duty of a country not to place itself in that circumstance. Tarrifs can be used to safeguard national economy, its structure, parts of it or all of it, at choice.
Ideally the world is a harmonious place where Chinese workers willingly support their fellow Americans out of a desire for social harmony, and tolerate all hardship to raise the standing of their country to the point that it can demonstrate its benevolence. Then again maybe the Chinese don’t like slaving just to satisfy American consumer society.
I dislike tarrifs as much as the next person, but unless you are for one world government (level playing field) , they are going to be an economic and social tool of any group of people, and unsurprisingly will be part of bargaining between those groups, as well as a source of corruption. The notion is of trust vs. independence, the shared benefits of reliance vs. liberty, at national level. If you are only concerned with the rights of individuals, you should give up your nationality and see how that works – with no one there to interfere with, or guarantee, them !
“Shelf life is five or ten years, so an alternative maybe is a mothballed manufacturing capability turnkey ready.”
Capital tied up in mothballed capacity, both human and physical, depreciates fast.
Instead, rotate stock of things critical enough to warrant maintaining a buffer of. FIFO augmented by random spot checks across the pile. Like preppers do with basics and ammo. You kill multiple birds with one stone: A buffer for emergencies, and continuous testing and verification of the buffer, while having plenty of spare stock should there be issues with a shipment you take delivery off.
One non-N95 mask per staff member per day, NYC Columbia hospital…
How long will they stay healthy?
My sister in law is training to become a nurse here in Michigan and spends some time in a hospital. They are giving them non-N95 masks and telling them that they are just as good as N95 masks. She believes it. I think they are just short on the N95 masks that can catch most viruses and seeking to help with the nurses “emotional needs” of having a mask.
I tried to explain that viruses can pass through most fabrics, but she insisted that any masks works so long as it is dry….
Tariffs wouldn’t be an issue if medical products were made in the U.S.A.
One story i came across said that an outbound ship was told to return to China because they needed the items on board. There was also concern about coming needs in India, as to whether their supplies would be available for export.
….(St. Paul) – March 20, 2020 – Nurses are calling on Minnesotans to help with the drastic shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) in Twin Cities hospitals. The Minnesota Nurses Association is accepting donations of N95 masks, which will be distributed to the State Emergency Operations Center to distribute to nurses who are running out at their respective hospitals….
Come on people. It’s obvious where the 3 month thing came from?
Russia, who got it from China, who probably got it from …. Javanka. They probably need 3 months to set up some kind of joint venture that will benefit massively from this 😉
We can just stack the new scandals on top of the old and present scandals, just like cord wood to be sorted out at a later date… or not.
What Mish needs to get on is investigate whether Trump or anyone related to him sold stocks while he parroted his “hoax” line. Now that would be the story of the year. He’s clearly melting down.
Richard Burr (R) Virginia did after learning through CONgress that COVID 19 was gonna be a ball buster, he unloaded something like 1.75 million in equities. What about Rumsfeld’s investment in the bird flu scare before it was announced? It’s all in that big cord wood pile.
Trump said earlier this week that tariff relief wasn’t something he was considering. “There’s no reason to do that. China is paying us billions and billions of dollars in tariffs,” he said in a news conference Wednesday. “I can’t imagine Americans asking for that.”
I heard him say that too. Does he really believe that Americans aren’t the ones paying the tariffs on products imported from China? Does he just hate the idea of Americans having a high standard of living?
You dont get it do you, china is screwing us long term.
You don’t get it do you?
It all makes sense when you consider that Trump is a Russian agent who is following Putin’s orders. Make Russia Great Again!
Relatively speaking, if Americans have a higher standard of living, Trump will have a lower standard of living. That can’t be!