Ambassador Branstad Working in China To Muster Protective Gear for the U.S. Caregivers

April 14, 2020 (EIRNS)—Terry Branstad, U.S. Ambassador to China, former Governor of Iowa and friend of President Xi Jinping, spoke on Iowa’s biggest radio show, about doing well in China during COVID-19, and how he is now working to muster personal protective equipment (PPE) for the U.S. medical caregivers from China.

On April 12, Branstad was speaking with host Van Hardin out of Des Moines, Iowa. Branstad presented a positive picture of beating back the virus in Beijing. In general, as of early April, he said, “Things are getting gradually better. It’s coming back gradually. You wear a mask. Your temperature is taken....” He described that people were compliant with the regulations, and stayed in their homes.

He explained that though 65% of the U.S. Embassy personnel took voluntary leave home, he is working to get PPE from China to the U.S. He formed a task force for this, and with “a skeleton crew, we are focussed on the pandemic threat in the world.” He recounted that they worked with Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and expedited four planeloads of medical equipment from China to the U.S., and there would be “many more planeloads over the next week.” He had spoken with Jared Kushner on April 2 and would be working with him on the project.

Hardin asked Branstad, who had been Iowa governor from 1983-1999 and again from 2010-2017, what it would be like to be governor now, during the pandemic. Branstad, after praising Gov. Kim Reynolds and urging Iowans to follow the CDC guidelines, recalled that he had been governor during the terrible 1980s farm crisis. He told Hardin he had a sign on his desk, reading: “Tough times never last. Tough people do.”

RT