NEW YORK: President Donald Trump said his administration will try to stop “profiteers” from exporting medical protective gear, shortly after picking a fight with manufacturing giant 3M, a major producer and exporter of face masks used to protect health care workers from the coronavirus.
3M argued that blocking exports will raise “significant humanitarian implications” abroad and lead other countries to retaliate by withholding much-needed medical supplies from the US.
Nearly all of 3M’s exports of high-grade N95 masks go to Canada and Latin America, and Canadian officials led by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau took the company’s side. They lobbied Trump administration officials not to cut off part of their supply.
That was not enough to persuade Trump. Late on Friday, the president announced that he will direct the Federal Emergency Management Agency to prevent the export of N95 masks, surgical gloves and other medical protective gear. He said exceptions might be made to help Italy and Spain, which have been hit hard by the outbreak.
“We are not happy with 3M,” Trump added during a White House briefing.
The spat between the president and a leading American manufacturer started Thursday, after Trump used his authority under the 1950 Defense Production Act to direct the government to acquire the “appropriate” number of N95 respirators from Minnesota-based 3M and its subsidiaries.
The N95 masks, also called respirators, provide more protection against the virus than do ordinary surgical masks. Governors and hospital officials around the country have warned of a dire shortage of masks and other protective gear for health care workers.
The president followed up his order with a barbed tweet on Thursday night.
“We hit 3M hard today after seeing what they were doing with their masks. ‘P Act’ all the way. Big surprise to many in government as to what they were doing — will have a big price to pay,” Trump tweeted.
The events leading to Trump’s order against 3M began weeks ago. A White House official said when Vice President Mike Pence visited a 3M factory in Minnesota last month, he was told that 3M had 35 million N95 masks that were intended for commercial uses but could be used by health care workers.
This week, after 3M received liability protection that it sought, the White House learned that not all of those masks were ready for the US market, the official said.
Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, has been leading administration contacts with the company to learn where the masks went and why some were not available as promised. The situation led Trump to invoke the Defense Production Act, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss events that have not been made public.
The company said that it has been boosting production for two months and working with the Trump administration to improve the supply of masks.
3M said that it has raised US production of N95 masks from 22 million in January to 35 million in March, with the entire increase being distributed in the US. It said that 10 million masks that it produced in China will be shipped to the US.
The company exports about 6 million masks a month to Canada and Latin America, where 3M is a primary supplier. 3M objected to stopping those exports.
CEO Mike Roman said Trump’s insinuation that 3M was doing something wrong was “absurd.”
“The idea that we are not doing everything we can to maximize deliveries of respirators in our home country — nothing is further from the truth,” he said.
