Posted on 04/11/2020 1:32:29 PM PDT by TaxPayer2000
Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte praised President Trump for assisting Italy in its battle to contain the coronavirus.
Speaking with NBC's Meet the Press host Chuck Todd on Sunday, Conte praised Trump for aiding Italy during the pandemic while working to slow the spread of the disease in the United States.
"In these difficult times, I can openly say that American President Trump once more has proven to be Italy's true and loyal friends. I want to thank President Trump, who immediately made us feel his support, his presence, and I am very grateful to American people for this," Conte said.
Conte’s appreciation for Trump come as relationships between Italy and its partners in the European Union grow strained under the coronavirus pandemic. Some EU politicians and architects have warned that the pandemic poses a “mortal danger” to the world’s largest trading bloc.
On March 10, Italy’s permanent representative to the EU, Maurizio Massari, slammed the EU response to the coronavirus’s spread in Italy when countries were just beginning to react to the pandemic. Italy was identified as a hot spot early and requested aid from its trading partners, but received none in the early stages of its battle.
"Italy has already asked to activate the European Union Mechanism of Civil Protection for the supply of medical equipment for individual protection," Massari wrote in an opinion piece. "But, unfortunately, not a single EU country responded to the commission’s call. Only China responded bilaterally. Certainly, this is not a good sign of European solidarity."
Although China did send aid to Italy, the majority of the equipment was found to be defective. Italian officials later complained bitterly of China’s largely worthless promise for aid.
Italy has been one of the hardest-hit nations by the pandemic and has issued an emergency lockdown for the country, banning residents from leaving their homes except for approved outings such as picking up groceries or medications. Hospitals are flooded with COVID-19 virus patients, and doctors have been forced to ration treatment in some regions.
The country has reported about 125,000 cases of the disease, over 15,000 deaths, and nearly 21,000 recovered.
It isn’t clear in what way Trump helped them. Did we help monetarily? Did we send equipment?
Heard on FNC this morning that US sent Italy several million $$. Sorry, I’m just ‘posting and running’ right now... not sure the specific amount. Maybe $50 mil?
They can repay us by kicking the Chinese out of their country.
Italy hasn’t seen much help from their EU brothers. Out of thousands of corona cases, Germany offered to take, what, 47?
Russia sent a couple of planeloads of help.
You have to wonder if the seams on EU are wearing a bit threadbare.
But the f-tards want to give Iran billions in “relief” aid.
What equipment we could spare, mutual military assistance and aid programs, telemedicine resources and so on were what we gave them. Also believe we gave them money to help them buy supplies (Italy’s broke).
Russia also sent a couple of convoys of military biowarfare personnel and supplies to Italy. Not all of it was useful against the coronavirus, but what could be useful actually worked - unlike what the Chinese sent over.
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