US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu talk outside the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, Jan. 27, 2020. Photo: Reuters / Kevin Lamarque.

i24 News – The Trump administration created a secret list while planning for COVID-19 vaccine distribution, prioritizing certain countries over others, Politico reported Friday.

According to the report, the list favored Israel and other allies such as Taiwan over low-and moderate-income countries.

The list was split into several sections, including US strategic allies, countries that helped develop the vaccine, countries with relationships with Gavi — the global vaccine alliance — and all other countries.

Officials told Politico that the documents were passed on to the Biden administration, saying that it “does not use the previous administration’s policy or the cited list to make vaccine sharing decisions.”

The list was an annex to a longer document laying out the Trump administration’s international approach to facing COVID-19, planning the distribution of the vaccines based on political preference.

“We thought that the categories themselves made sense at the time,” said Paul Mango, the former deputy chief of staff for policy at the Department of Health and Human Services, according to Politico.

“The underserved countries were third on the list.”

The list included an assessment of the country’s ability to “absorb and distribute doses and to what degree they were experiencing outbreaks.”

“We identified categories and we put weights to them, and then subject matter experts from each [agency] came in and informed those categories,” one former Trump official said. “From there, we had a panel of experts score each country based on the evidence provided.”