https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/11/us/politics/coronavirus-astrazeneca-united-states.html
This is indeed reprehensible. The FDA refuses to authorize the AstraZeneca vaccine for use in the US, even though numerous other countries have done so (including Canada and the UK). But the federal government also refuses to authorize its export. So we have tens of millions of doses sitting in warehouses, that no one is allowed to use! Meanwhile, people are dying needlessly every day whose lives could easily be saved by changing this awful policy. Canada, for example, has a serious vaccine shortage.
Even from the standpoint of narrow US self-interest, this is ridiculous and stupid. It undermines Biden’s project of repairing relations with allies and improving America’s image in the world. And if Canada and Mexico’s economies remain hobbled by the pandemic, we suffer too (the three nations are highly interconnected).
This combination of cruel nationalism and economic illiteracy is precisely what we were supposed to get rid of when we voted out Trump. Biden should know better than this. Stop the 18th century mercantilism before it kills again!