U.S. Plans To Ship 8,000 Ventilators Abroad

WASHINGTON (AP) – Call it “ventilator diplomacy.” President Donald Trump, who’s taken to calling the U.S. the “king” of ventilators, is making plans to ship 8,000 of the breathing machines to foreign countries by the end of July. That’s a long way from the early days of the virus, when U.S. medical workers were wondering if a shortage of ventilators would force them to decide which patients would get them. Now, the U.S. has a surplus and the president is sharing them with other countries – a goodwill gesture that also helps him offset criticism about his own early response to the pandemic.