Germany, France say US playing dirty over masks

TORONTO/BERLIN/WASHINGTON: The scarcity of safety equipment essential to the coronavirus fight is fuelling tensions between longtime transatlantic allies, with local officials in France and Germany accusing unnamed Americans of using unfair means to obtain protective masks.

Berlin’s state interior ministry blamed the US for confiscating 200,000 masks ordered from a US producer when they were in transit through Bangkok. French officials have accused unidentified Americans of paying over the odds to secure masks in China that had already been earmarked for France.

The US embassy in Paris said any suggestion that the government was involved in such practices was “completely false”. There was no response the allegations from the White House or the US state department.

“We view this as an act of modern piracy,” Berlin’s interior minister Andreas Geisel said. “You cannot act in such a way among transatlantic partners. Such wild west methods can’t dominate, even in a time of global crisis.”

With hundreds of western citizens dying each day, the incidents highlight the fundamental distrust between the US and Europe. It risks hampering efforts to collectively tackle the damage unleashed by a virus that has brought the world’s economy to a standstill.

The degree of suspicion also feeds into a narrative that it’s every nation out for itself as Europeans are also viewing with greater scepticism offers of help from Russia and China, wondering if there are strings attached.

In Canada, PM Justin Trudeau’s administration was also critical of the American government’s latest stand on the matter, calling the US measure a “mistake”. Canada’s deputy PM Chrystia Freeland said the government was “working very hard on getting shipments from 3M” and also from a “diversity of suppliers around the world”.

French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said on Thursday that his administration has seen orders cancelled 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. “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.”

The pandemic has left governments, companies, charities and individuals around the world competing for scarce supplies of protective kit.