Last night a tweet from Steve Edwards, President and CEO of CoxHealth, caught my eye. Here is what the tweet read:
“We need federal intervention. Supply is disrupted and filled with profiteering middle men and counterfeits. N95 mask was $.62 now $6.50, gowns were $.24, now $4.50. In a federal emergency if gas went from $1.50 to $28.13 per gallon would we intervene? These PPEs can save lives.”
Seeing this tweet prompted me to do further research as to exactly why these prices were so high. In doing so, I came across this article discussing that N95 exports from the U.S. need to continue in order to keep supply high and prices low here domestically within the U.S.
At first thought, it makes sense that producers of N95 masks, such as 3M, need to only sell to domestic companies because they are an American-made product and Americans desperately need them. However, 3M argues that by doing so, there will be a retaliation that causes the total number of masks available to the U.S to actually decrease.
Obviously, I do not know the answer to this problem or have any insight on how it should be handled. But as I was reading, I did make several connections to topics we have learned about in Chapter 2. Chapter 2 discusses how the world is more interdependent that ever before, which I think is something that we can all agree upon on. During a world-wide pandemic like the one we are experiencing today, it is important that the world continues to import and export just as we have before in order for the entire world to overcome this; at the end of the day, we are in this together. For example, if U.S. companies suddenly stop exporting supplies such as N95 masks to other countries, what happens when those countries retaliate by stopping imports of vital supplies such as respirators and gloves to us?
As mentioned before I don’t know the right answer, if there even is one at all, but I do think that it is something to consider when looking at it from a global perspective in relation to international trade’s role during this pandemic.
Rachel Nehring says
Skyler,
This was a very interesting article. I would have to agree that in times like this, it’s hard to us to have a “right answer”. Although, we want to keep our resources domestic to help our country I would have to agree that it could back fire. I used to work for a company that has done an outstanding job of making sure our China and Vietnam manufacturers are still in production and getting us our shipments. I believe in a time like this we really need to lean on everyone for help to make sure no one falls too hard. I think it’s interesting in Chapter 2 how we learned a lot of countries are starting to become more interdependent. I know in history classes awhile ago we learned how countries were starting to specialize when trade started to get big, but now it’s nice to know we are trying to come together even more.