Does the US have any real friends?

5 min readJul 8, 2021

Back in April 2020, health authorities in the Cayman Islands were expecting a shipment of masks and four much sought-after ventilators, needed to keep seriously ill people alive[1]. They never arrived. The reason was, Donald Trump had invoked the Defence Production Act, a wartime provision designed to be able to force capitalist companies to work on government projects because of urgent, wartime, needs. It was now illegal to ship ventilators, despite them having been ordered AND paid for, before the act was invoked. Months later, after much expense and time spent by hundreds of people lobbying and applying through different departments and only when it was established the US no longer needed them, they were released.

In the same month, supposed allies of the US, Germany had an experience they described as modern-day piracy[2] when a plane load of masks being transferred in Thailand for a final destination of Berlin was “hijacked”. US agents swept in, made a different deal and transferred the products onto a US plane, leaving the German Police Service, who, once again, had bought and paid for them, without the equipment they needed to safely do their job.

Barbados had reason to be concerned at the same time, because another shipment of donated ventilators to the West Indian Island had also been seized, enroute from the USA to them[3], there’s no evidence that these ever arrived.

News articles abounded at the time as the US Customs and Border Patrol, in a joint declaration with Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), announced they would not allow any of a range of life saving or protective equipment (PPE) to leave US shores[4].

Why this was necessary should be the subject of some formal enquiry but more important was how it displayed the greed and selfishness of the US. In English, there’s an expression: a friend in need is a friend indeed. It’s often misused to indicate that a country is indeed our friend. However, the real meaning is to show that the person, or a country may not be our friend at all and no time is this more obvious when a so-called friend is in trouble and needs something.

No one wanted to see US citizens dying needlessly because of a lack of preparation on the part of their government but are Americans really ok with people in other countries dying because the equipment they had the foresight to order, pay for and anticipate delivery of was withheld under US government regulations?

The Cayman Islands and Barbados are in the Caribbean, only about 70,000 people live in the Caymans but it’s rich in tourism and especially in financial services, it’s known as a tax haven for thousands of companies. Barbados has a much larger population but is a lot less rich, they rely heavily on tourism, which, of course has been derailed for the time being. Something neither of these countries have, is manufacturing; so, when they ordered ventilators from their bigger, richer neighbour, it was because they really needed them.

The US didn’t just do this to their smaller “friends”, or Germany, their more distant NATO ally, with whom they were having other disputes about troop numbers and NATO costs. They also did it to Canada, with whom they share a long border, common culture, language and heritage.

The problem in this case, was that the government hadn’t been placing many orders with one of the USAs largest manufacturer of masks, so, that company, 3M, exported most of the masks they made to other countries[5]. The US based production going to Canada and much of their overseas production going to South and Central America. Now, the US wanted it all.

Fast forward to today; PPE and medical equipment shortages have been overcome but there’s a new crisis. Vaccinations have come to the forefront and whenever China does anything positive in the world, the US cries “vaccine diplomacy” or “vaccine coercion”. Once again, there’s strong indicators that this is the USA imposing its own standards and projecting their own selfish and coercive tactics.

If Venezuela needs to buy vaccines[6], sanctions by the USA shouldn’t be allowed to prevent this from happening. If Brazil wants to buy a Russian vaccine, then pressure to stop this from happening shouldn’t be coming from the USA just because they fear it will increase Russia’s influence in the region[7].

If China feels a good step towards future relations with South Africa[8] is to supply vaccines, that shouldn’t be the only reason the USA makes a donation to build a factory[9], that donation needed to be made because it was the right thing to do, not to counter China’s growing influence in the region.

And, most importantly, unless the richest countries in the world, with only 14% of the population plan on making huge donations of vaccines, which there’s no evidence they are doing, could someone please explain to this writer, why they need 51% of all the vaccines available globally[10]?

Finally, when the world needed a vaccine, several countries stepped up. Costs were borne by governments but “big pharma” stood to gain a lot from development and subsequent sales. COVID-19 and the climate crisis are two examples in modern history when the best way to overcome a global issue, is to handle it on a global level. When will the USA realise this and allow its allies and subordinates to do what most of the rest of the world wants and all of the developing world needs; release the waiver on the Intellectual Property Rights related to COVID-19 so that medicines, equipment and life saving vaccines can reach the people who can’t afford them[11]? This would prove that they are indeed friends, in a time of need.