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U.S President Donald Trump has asked South Korea for medical equipment to help fight the Covid-19 in return for promises to give U.S approval to South Korean companies. On Tuesday, the presidential Blue House office in Seoul issued a statement. It says President Moon Jae-in offered to deliver the equipment if his country has any spare. The offer was reportedly followed a 23-minute phone call as it was arranged at an urgent request from Donald Trump. The request indicates the very different reactions to Covid-19 the two nations have taken since both discovered their first coronavirus cases on the same day.

South Korea also announced widespread testing within days and launching an aggressive program to isolate confirmed cases and trace their contacts. Following a significant early outburst, it has won praise for slowing the spread of the disease. So far it has reported 125 deaths, compared to more than 500 in the United States. The number of new infections per day has been below 100 for 13 consecutive days. The United States did little testing initially and has now been shutting parts of the country as a whole, with rapidly growing outbursts in a number of states and thousands of new cases per day.

President Trump sought for weeks to play down the threat of the coronavirus Covid-19. He also insisted at one point that 15 confirmed cases in the U.S would soon be close to zero and it will disappear as a miracle. The revelation that he has apparently asked for help from a foreign country comes against the background of increased calls within the United States for the president to activate the Defense Production Act. It would allow him to force private companies to join the fight against Covid-19 coronavirus by repurposing their output towards urgent products like hand sanitizer and face masks. Trump also said he doesn’t want to force companies to make medical supplies.