Germany Cries Foul over Berlin-Bound Masks Diverted to U.S.
wsj.com
wsj.com
3M said it “has no evidence to suggest 3M products have been seized. 3M has no record of any order of respirators from China for the Berlin police. We cannot speculate where this report originated.”
However while if everyone had their own factory meeting their own regular needs that would mean everyone gets a fairer share at the moment. It wouldn’t mean everyone gets 100% of their needs, because demand is through the roof. (Yes there is some scaling up that could be done, but point still stands).
It also doesn’t seem an automatic given that while some industries should be viewed as critical for security reasons, that all industries must be local.
It seems there’s need for much more nuance to this. Countries need better cooperative systems for handling such events as part of negotiating trade treaties. A kind of economic NATO (for a probably terrible analogy).
The real issue is the contract language used by the EU and the member governments specify "pay on delivery" in which the receiving agency will not accept an invoice until the goods are received and inspected as well as 60 to 90 day terms being normal. The EU members are very slow with this acceptance (2 weeks is not abnormal) and combined with the longer payment terms you are looking at 10 to 12 weeks to get paid.
In the US the governments will accept contracts "FOB" which means when the product is ready to ship from the manufacturer the buyer will accept the invoice. Terms tend to be 30 days but 15 is also possible. Plus you tend to get paid on time.
So in a global market with demand the US will always be a preferred customer. They will pay, on average, 6 to 8 weeks faster.
Cash is king in todays world and the EU needs to get used to this or they are going to continue to see such challenges.