From “Key Medical Supplies Were Shipped From U.S. Manufacturers to Foreign Buyers, Records Show” (The Intercept):
Vessel manifests maintained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection and reviewed by The Intercept show a steady flow of the medical equipment needed to treat the coronavirus being shipped abroad as recently as March 17.
[…]
Drive DeVilbiss Healthcare, a Pennsylvania-based health product firm that produces supplemental oxygen machines, sent at least three different shipments of respiratory equipment to Belgium in mid-February and early March. The total cargo included 14 containers weighing more than 55 tons.
Fifty-five tons!
On March 8, two tons of Vapotherm’s high-flow disposable patient circuit units, used for operating its respiratory aids, were loaded onto a container ship in the Port of Los Angeles. The shipment was sent to Kobe, Japan, for Japan Medicalnext Co., a health care distributor.
The records show dozens of other shipments of respirator equipment, medical garments, medical masks, oxygen concentrators, and ventilators sent abroad over the last two months.
[…]
On February 28, a ship left New York for Hamburg, Germany, with about 1.5 tons of ventilator masks manufactured by Allied Healthcare Products, a health product business based in St. Louis. The masks are used for the company’s portable ventilator unit.
The reason?
The U.S. government has placed no restrictions on exports of medical supplies while continuing to impose financial penalties on the import of personal protective gear, protective goggles, pulse oximeters, hand sanitizer, and other medical products from China. On March 10 and 12, President Donald Trump temporarily lifted tariffs, in place since 2017, on some of these medical products.