Edit | US and vaccines: Protectionism is a zero-sum game

Protectionism might be the next logical step after human beings organise themselves on the basis of nation states but in a crisis such as the COVID 19 where global economy is derailed and entire humanity is threatened, it is best abandoned. The US that regularly prides itself as the most liberal democracy in the world and the biggest votary of free market should learn it. The virus knows no political boundaries and has killed people in large numbers from every nation of the world.

The US it yet to reconsider its decision not to supply raw material for vaccines despite appeals from the Serum Institute of India which is in direct contrast to how India agreed to Donald Trump’s request last year to supply hydroxychloroquine, when it was believed to be effective in treating COVID patients.

Joe Biden is a Democrat, the party that is, at least on paper and utterances, less likely to follow protectionist policies than the Republicans, who followed an avowed policy of America First. It is morally incumbent upon Washington to abandon protectionism and embrace a policy that is more humane, one that suits the US school of liberalism. At a press conference on April 22, when the State Department spokesman was underscoring the Biden administration’s “special responsibility” towards Americans, he sounded nothing but like a protectionist hawk.

 Protectionism in times of global calamity is perhaps a zero-sum game. When there is a scramble for medicine, vaccine, masks, hospital equipment and oxygen, no nation can perhaps say that it is self-sufficient, especially when the enemy we all are battling have no history on the basis of which on can predict its future movement. A nation that might have seem to have an advantage in the fight today can be at a disadvantage tomorrow when the virus appears in a new strain.