President Trump has issued an order seeking to force General Motors to produce ventilators for coronavirus patients under the Defense Production Act. Trump said the normal contracting process would take too long amid the urgent need for breathing machines.
FiLE - In this March 26, 2020 file photo, President Donald Trump speaks about the coronavirus in the James Brady Briefing Room, in Washington. Trump attacked General Motors Friday, March 27, alleging that the company promised to build thousands more breathing machines than it can deliver for coronavirus patients.
Trump said negotiations with General Motors had been productive, “but our fight against the virus is too urgent to allow the give-and-take of the contracting process to continue to run its normal course.” The Detroit automaker is farthest along in the effort to make more of the critical breathing machines. It’s working with Ventec Life Systems, a small Seattle-area ventilator maker to increase the company’s production and repurpose a GM auto electronics plant in Kokomo, Indiana, to make the machines. The company said Friday it could build 10,000 ventilators per month starting in April with potential to make even more.
The move appears aimed at price and volume negotiations with the government. But it’s Ventec, not GM, that is talking with the government, said Chris Brooks, Ventec’s chief strategy officer. Trump’s action came just after a series of tweets attacking GM, alleging that the company promised to build thousands more breathing machines than it can deliver for coronavirus patients and that it wants too much money for them.
Experts say the U.S. is hundreds of thousands of breathing machines short of what it likely will need to treat a rapidly rising number of COVID-19 patients. New York, Michigan, Louisiana and the state of Washington have been singled out as virus hot spots in the U.S.
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