Complaint: US knew mask shortage was imminent
Trump administration allowed companies to export supplies anyway
U.S. companies continued their massive sell-off of medical masks overseas throughout March, well after the coronavirus began infecting Americans and draining hospitals of crucial supplies and even as White House officials raised red flags, a USA TODAY investigation found.
America exported more protective masks – including disposable surgical masks and N95 respirator masks – in March than in any other month in the past decade. In all, $83.1 million worth were sent from the United States to the rest of the world, according to an analysis of the latest U.S. Census Bureau trade data.
March’s total export figure surpassed the previous high of $74.3 million set in February, when many of the masks went to China. And it far exceeded the average monthly shipment value of $53.3 million over the past decade, USA TODAY’s analysis found. The data shows only monthly totals and does not allow for a daily breakdown of shipments.
The exports came even as top-level White House officials, including Vice President Mike Pence, were being warned that such shipments were hurting the country’s own supply, according to an 89-page whistleblower complaint released Tuesday from Dr. Rick Bright, an ousted U.S. Health and Human Services division director.
The complaint includes numerous attachments that detail discussions among government officials as early as January about supply chain issues of personal protective equipment and the possibility of halting U.S. exports.
On Feb. 14, for example, Peter Navarro, the White House’s director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy sent a memo to the COVID-19 Task Force chaired by Pence: “Has the export of N-95 been halted? If not, why not? We are facing shortages of raw materials that suggest a constrained supply. We should not be exporting any more masks.”
Navarro urged immediate action on the issue.
“Let’s move this in Trump time,” he wrote. “These masks are the front-line defense for our health care professionals, and we can’t waste time.”
Despite those warnings, President
Donald Trump did not move to ban exports of N95 masks and other personal protective equipment until April 3, seven weeks later. He partially reversed that policy days later after backlash from other countries, in particular Canada.
Neither the White House nor the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services responded to USA TODAY’s requests for comment.
COVID-19 first appeared in the United States on Jan. 21 and had infected at least 42 Americans by the beginning of March.
By the end of that month, the case count hit nearly 186,000 and prompted travel bans, stay-at-home orders and massive shortages of personal protective equipment. Hospitals across the county were struggling to purchase surgical and N95 masks, encountering ordering delays of up to six months, according to a survey released Monday by the watchdog of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
HHS Secretary Alex Azar serves on the COVID-19 Task Force to which Navarro’s memos were sent. Other members include director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci, Surgeon General Jerome Adams and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnunchin.