China reportedly forced Italy to buy back its own personal protective equipment after the communist country said it would send medical gear to the Mediterranean nation during the coronavirus pandemic.

Italy donated medical equipment to China at the onset of the coronavirus, but when the virus hit the European nation, China put a price tag on the same PPE and forced Italy to buy it back, according to an unnamed senior Trump official who spoke with the Spectator.

"Before the virus hit Europe, Italy sent tons of PPE to China to help China protect its own population. China then has sent Italian PPE back to Italy — some of it, not even all of it ... and charged them for it," the Trump administration official said.

China said in March it would donate medical supplies to Italy, which has faced more than 130,000 cases of the coronavirus and over 16,500 deaths.

The official continued, “It’s so disingenuous for Chinese officials now to say we are the ones who are helping the Italians or we are the ones who are helping the developing world when, in fact, they are the ones who infected all of us. Of course they should be helping. They have a special responsibility to help because they are the ones who began the spread of the coronavirus and did not give the information required to the rest of the world to plan accordingly.”

China has sold nearly 4 billion face masks to other countries grappling with the coronavirus, according to Agence France-Presse. The outlet detailed that China has exported 3.86 million masks, 37.5 million pieces of PPE, 16,000 ventilators, and 2.84 million testing kits since March 1. The orders were shipped to more than 50 foreign nations, and customs official Jin Hai told Agence France-Presse the exports were valued at about $1.4 billion.

Some of the medical supplies were even rejected for inadequate standards by the foreign nations, including thousands of test kits sent to Spain that were found to be faulty and 600,000 face masks in the Netherlands that were recalled.

“The disinformation that China has put out is crippling responses around the world. We were a month behind because the Chinese did not share information,” the official told the Spectator. “It’s hard for the world to accept that even the information that they’re putting out now is accurate and acceptable from an epidemiological standpoint. We’re operating on some level with a hand tied behind our back.”