US mask makers say they are being clobbered by cheaper competition from China

Protective Health Gear started selling the masks last September. Customer demand was closely tied to Covid-19 case numbers in the US, and as the winter surge took hold in December, orders went “through the roof,” Wolin said, making it difficult for the company to keep up. But the bulk of the company’s sales were coming from the general public, not from hospitals, distributors or government agencies that buy masks in bulk, he said. When it came to those contracts, “we always lost out to the cheapest company,” Wolin said. Often, he said, those cheaper competitors have been based in China. “We pay overtime. We pay double time on weekends,” Wolin said. “When it comes to overseas production, we can’t compete with the cost of labor.” In 2019, 72% of the masks and respirators the US imported came from China, according to Soon after taking office earlier this year, President Joe Biden signed two executive orders calling for federal agencies to review the US’s PPE supply chain and identify potential shortfalls in domestic manufacturing capacity. “We shouldn’t have to rely on a foreign country, especially one that doesn’t share our interests or our values, in order to protect and provide for our people during a national emergency,” he told reporters in February. The White House tells CNN significant progress has been made on reducing imports and prioritizing domestic production of PPE. According to Tim Manning, the administration’s national Covid-19 supply coordinator, in the US “[the] current estimate is that manufacturing capacity matches what we believe is unconstrained demand [in the US].” A report from the government accountability office in July backs this up, showing that by March this year, estimated production capacity for N95s in the US had exceeded estimated domestic demand.In addition to the billions of dollars already committed to shoring up domestic manufacturing in the administration’s American Rescue Plan, he said more money is coming and the administration is “rethinking” the way it creates its supplier contracts to focus on US-made products. It’s also having conversations with group purchasers for hospitals, and state and local government officials about buying US-made PPE, he said. Planning for the next pandemic The key question for the US government, however, is how much domestic production it needs to support in times of low demand “to make it easier to scale up production when you do have a pandemic,” said Bown. Even though the White House says there is enough manufacturing capacity in the US to meet demand now, there’s also a risk it will go away as the pandemic dies down. Honeywell says it has already closed manual production efforts for N95s at two facilities, though the company says it has maintained automated lines at other locations. Wolin said his company needs government support so it can survive the lean times and be around when it matters. When the CDC relaxed its mask guidance in May, demand fell off a cliff. Protective Health Gear went from having 150 employees to 15. Now, as demand increases due to the spread of the Delta variant, they’ve ramped back up to 65 (hiring is proving to be another major challenge). Wolin said he has been in talks with the government about buying its N95s for government agencies and the strategic national stockpile, but so far no deal has been made. “We’re not asking for handouts. We know that you need these particular supplies and we’re just asking that you purchase what we have,” he said.