3M, Under Attack From White House, Pushes Back
April 03 2020 - 10:34AM
Dow Jones News
By Allison Prang
3M said it would work with the U.S. to implement the Defense
Production Act but pushed back against criticisms that the company
was favoring other, higher-paying countries with the distribution
of its masks.
"We look forward to working closely with the Administration to
implement yesterday's DPA order," 3M said Friday. "We will continue
to maximize the amount of respirators we can produce on behalf of
U.S. health-care workers, as we have every single day since this
crisis began."
3M also said that China approved the company exporting 10
million of 3M's N95 respirators that were made in China to the U.S.
The company said the Trump administration also asked that it stop
exporting N95 respirators it makes in the U.S. to Latin America and
Canada, but that "there are...significant humanitarian
implications" to doing so.
"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," 3M said Friday. "If that were to occur,
the net number of respirators being made available to the United
States would actually decrease."
A Florida official told Fox News that the state couldn't get
masks because 3M was selling them to other countries that were
paying a higher price.
3M pushed back against that sentiment Friday.
"We are working with the U.S. Attorney General and attorneys
general of every state, making it clear that 3M has not and will
not raise prices for respirators and offering our assistance in the
fight," the company said.
The president had criticized 3M in a tweet on Thursday, saying
his administration "hit 3M hard today after seeing what they were
doing with their Masks."
There was no immediate comment from the White House on 3M's
response.
3M has doubled production in recent months. But Chief Executive
Mike Roman recently told The Wall Street Journal that "the demand
we have exceeds our production capacity."
"The narrative that is, kind of, propagated broadly, and the
focus there, it's just not true. We are doing everything. The
employees of 3M around the world are working around-the-clock," Mr.
Roman said in an interview Friday with CNBC.
Write to Allison Prang at allison.prang@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 03, 2020 10:19 ET (14:19 GMT)
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