“Face masks being manufactured in China, for example, went to domestic consumption and their own fight against the virus” while the U.S. was “largely unable to import supplies from China.”
What PolitiFact found
China did have a greater need for its domestically manufactured masks in February as the virus ravaged the country, but Rubio greatly overstates the situation. Imports dropped, but they did continue.
Their words, from the summary they publish with the rating.
In short
Marco Rubio (U.S. Senator, R-Fla.) made this claim around 20 April 2020. PolitiFact (United States) looked into it and published its finding on 23 April 2020, 3 days later. Its rating was “Mostly False”.
Marco Rubio has 16 checked claims in this archive. Fact-checking organisations rated 6 of them false or fake, 7 misleading or mixed and 1 true.
Where the claim appeared
- nytimes.comhttps://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/20/opinion/marco-rubio-coronavirus-economy.html?referring…
Links recorded by PolitiFact. Some posts may have been deleted since.
This check was done by PolitiFact, not by DoesItStand. We list it so you can find it. Their full evidence and reasoning are in their article.