Coronavirus: Trump Rips Minnesota-Based 3M, Company Pushes Back

MAPLEWOOD, MN — Minnesota-based 3M is pushing back after being targeted by President Donald Trump in a tweet late Thursday over the company's worldwide production of N95 face masks.

The tweet came after Trump invoked the Defense Production Act to force the Maplewood-based company to manufacture more masks for the United States.

The global demand for N95 face masks has skyrocketed as nations, including the United States, scramble to confront the new coronavirus crisis. The masks are a vital piece of personal protective equipment — PPE — that helps keep medical professionals and others from being infected with the COVID-19 virus.

In a statement Friday, 3M said its employees "have gone above and beyond to manufacture as many N95 respirators as possible for the U.S. market." The company says it has maximized the amount of respirators it can produce for the nation's health care workers every day since the crisis began.

"In the course of our collaboration with the administration this past weekend, the administration requested that 3M increase the amount of respirators we currently import from our overseas operations into the U.S. We appreciate the assistance of the administration to do exactly that. For example, earlier this week, we secured approval from China to export to the U.S. 10 million N95 respirators manufactured by 3M in China."

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However, the company is fighting back against the White House's demand that 3M stop exporting respirators it currently manufactures in the United States to the Canadian and Latin American markets. 3M says where would be "significant humanitarian implications" in doing so.

The company adds that "ceasing all export of respirators produced in the United States would likely cause other countries to retaliate and do the same, as some have already done. If that were to occur, the net number of respirators being made available to the United States would actually decrease. That is the opposite of what we and the administration, on behalf of the American people, both seek."

3M said it looks forward "to working closely with the administration to implement yesterday’s DPA order."

Trump's memorandum on 3M states that "The Secretary, through the Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Administrator), shall use any and all authority available under the Act to acquire, from any appropriate subsidiary or affiliate of 3M Company, the number of N-95 respirators that the Administrator determines to be appropriate."

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