My 2 cents...
MAX was designed to be a replacement of older 737, thus all the grandfathering, no need of training (other than an IPAD session)... which means that the plane was designed to be flow by pilots that are flying older 737... there was no commercial requirement to get grab market from AB, and retrain the pilots from AB to MAX, the whole business plan was to keep existing 737 customer buying an "upgraded product"!
Now FAA, Boeing, pilots in the "western countries" are saying... that those pilots in 3rd countries that have been flying the older 737 are not skilled enough to fly a plane that has been certified with grandfathering from the very same planes that they have been flying for the past 40 years...
I do not get it, can someone from "first world country" can explain me?