Tuesday on Fox Business Network’s “Mornings with Maria,” Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) sounded off on President Donald Trump requesting $2.5 billion to be used to combat the coronavirus.

Perry said the United States is “more prepared than China was” for the coronavirus, but he argued the money Trump is requesting is necessary to quickly create a vaccine and because China produces many of the supplies needed to combat it.

“We need to be better prepared, for sure,” Perry told host Maria Bartiromo. “And I think this is a wake-up call to all of America about supply chains and critical things that we need including medicines, many of them developed and coming from China, being produced in China and the fact that we don’t have the capacity to do that currently.”

“I think we’re more prepared than China was,” he added later. “As you saw, they were literally building hospitals from the ground up on location. I think we’re more prepared for that. But again, this is a wake-up call when we can’t get the simple items that we need to make sure that our hospital staff, our emergency responder staff is needing. It’s simple things like the masks and the protective clothing oftentimes that is produced in China. And so, of course, they are using as much as is probably available right now, which leads the rest of the world at a disadvantage. … Potentially, that’s where part of the money’s going to go and those are some of the very simple things that we need to key on and focus on in preventing the spread of a possible outbreak in the United States.”

Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent