{"id":26477,"date":"2025-04-23T15:03:48","date_gmt":"2025-04-23T15:03:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=26477"},"modified":"2025-04-23T15:23:53","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T15:23:53","slug":"tariffs-on-china-arent-likely-to-rescue-battered-u-s-p-p-e-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=26477","title":{"rendered":"Tariffs on China Aren\u2019t Likely to Rescue Battered U.S. P.P.E. Industry"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The few domestic companies that still make protective gear for health care workers have clamored for federal intervention. But they worry President Trump\u2019s trade war with China won\u2019t help.<\/p>\n

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Few domestic industries have been as devastated by the flood of cheap Chinese imports as manufacturers of face masks, exam gloves and other disposable medical gear that protects health care workers from infectious pathogens.<\/p>\n

The industry\u2019s demise had calamitous consequences during the Covid pandemic, when Beijing halted exports and American hospital workers found themselves at the mercy of a deadly airborne virus that quickly filled the nation\u2019s emergency rooms and morgues.<\/p>\n

But as President Trump unveiled his tariff regimen earlier this month, and Beijing retaliated with an 84 percent tax on American imports, the few remaining companies that make protective gear in the United States felt mostly unease.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m pretty freaked out,\u201d said Lloyd Armbrust, the chief executive of Armbrust American, a pandemic-era startup that produces N95 respirator masks at a factory in Texas. \u201cOn one hand, this is the kind of medicine we need if we really are going to become independent of China. On the other hand, this is not responsible industrial policy.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The United States once dominated the field of personal protective equipment, or P.P.E. The virus-filtering N95 mask and the disposable nitrile glove are American inventions, but China now produces more than 90 percent of the medical gear worn by American health care workers.<\/p>\n

Despite bipartisan vows to end the nation\u2019s dependency on foreign medical products \u2014 and to shore up the dozens of domestic manufacturers that sprung up during the pandemic \u2014 federal agencies and state governments have resumed their reliance on inexpensive Chinese imports. Earlier this year, when California purchased millions of N95 masks for those affected by the Los Angeles wildfires, it chose masks made in China.<\/p>\n

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The few domestic companies that still make protective gear for health care workers have clamored for federal intervention. But they worry President Trump\u2019s trade war with China won\u2019t help.Few domestic industries have been as devastated by the flood of cheap Chinese imports as manufacturers of face masks, exam gloves and other disposable medical gear that protects health care workers from infectious pathogens.The industry\u2019s demise had calamitous consequences during the Covid pandemic, when Beijing halted exports and American hospital workers found themselves at the mercy of a deadly airborne virus that quickly filled the nation\u2019s emergency rooms and morgues.But as President Trump unveiled his tariff regimen earlier this month, and Beijing retaliated with an 84 percent tax on American imports, the few remaining companies that make protective gear in the United States felt mostly unease.\u201cI\u2019m pretty freaked out,\u201d said Lloyd Armbrust, the chief executive of Armbrust American, a pandemic-era startup that produces N95 respirator masks at a factory in Texas. \u201cOn one hand, this is the kind of medicine we need if we really are going to become independent of China. On the other hand, this is not responsible industrial policy.\u201dThe United States once dominated the field of personal protective equipment, or P.P.E. The virus-filtering N95 mask and the disposable nitrile glove are American inventions, but China now produces more than 90 percent of the medical gear worn by American health care workers.Despite bipartisan vows to end the nation\u2019s dependency on foreign medical products \u2014 and to shore up the dozens of domestic manufacturers that sprung up during the pandemic \u2014 federal agencies and state governments have resumed their reliance on inexpensive Chinese imports. Earlier this year, when California purchased millions of N95 masks for those affected by the Los Angeles wildfires, it chose masks made in China.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26479,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26477"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26477\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26480,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26477\/revisions\/26480"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}