Coronavirus: Trump says he would send ventilators to Iran if Tehran wanted them
US President Donald Trump said on Saturday that he would be willing to send ventilators to Iran to help treat coronavirus patients.
“I have offered to help them (Iran) if they want. If they need ventilators, which they do, I would send them ventilators. We have thousands of excess ventilators. We have a stockpile of ventilators,” he said during the daily coronavirus status briefing.
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“Iran is a much different country (now) than when I came. Iran was going to take over the entire Middle East. Right now, they just want to survive. They’re having protests every week. They’re loaded up with the plague.”
Iran currently has 80,868 confirmed coronavirus cases and the death toll stands at 5,031, according to the Ministry of Health.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had said on February 28 that the US offered Iran help to deal with the coronavirus outbreak, and that the country didn’t have solid healthcare infrastructure.
However, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei rejected on March 22 any US help and said that the US should focus on helping itself.
“The Americans have so far said on several occasions that they are willing to help us with medicine. These are very strange remarks,” said Khamenei.
“You are suffering from shortages… If you have anything, use it on yourselves,” he said.
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