Trump tells GM: Stop 'wasting time', build ventilators to address coronavirus

By David Shepardson and Ben Klayman

 

FILE PHOTO: A ventilator is seen at the New York City Emergency Management Warehouse, where 400 ventilators arrived and before being shipped out for distribution, due to concerns over the rapid spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, U.S., March 24, 2020. REUTERS/Caitlin Ochs/File Photo

 

WASHINGTON/DETROIT (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday invoked emergency powers to require General Motors Co to build much-needed ventilators for coronavirus patients after he accused the largest U.S. automaker of "wasting time" during negotiations.

 

Trump, who has been on the defensive for not moving faster to compel the production of medical equipment, for the first time invoked the Defense Production Act, saying GM was not moving quickly enough even though earlier on Friday the largest U.S. automaker announced it would begin building ventilators in the coming weeks.

 

Asked about negotiations with GM over ventilators, Trump expressed anger with the company's decision to close an assembly plant in politically important Ohio. He also criticized GM's prior decisions to build plants outside the United States.

 

"I didn't go into it with a favorable view," Trump told a news conference of the GM talks. White House adviser Peter Navarro said the administration ran into "roadblocks" with GM this week.

 

GM said in a statement in response to Trump that it has been working with ventilator firm Ventec Life Systems and GM suppliers "around the clock for over a week to meet this urgent need" and said its commitment to Ventec's ventilators "has never wavered."

 

The act grants the president power to expand industrial production of any key materials or products for national security and other reasons. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and other Democrats have urged him to invoke the act, but the president had been reluctant to do so until now.

 

Democratic U.S. Senator Ed Markey said, "About time. Now, tell us every day: which companies will be making more of this equipment, how much is being made, and where the equipment is going."

 

On Friday, the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States topped 100,000, the highest in the world according to a Reuters tally. The U.S. death toll topped 1,550. [L1N2BK21G]

 

Trump also said countries such as the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain and Italy need ventilators and that if the excess volume is not needed, the United States can export them.

 

Earlier, Trump lashed out at GM and Ford Motor Co for moving too slowly just hours before GM said it would build medical equipment at an Indiana plant.

 

Trump criticized the U.S. automakers and said he expected the United States would make or obtain 100,000 additional ventilators within the next 100 days.

 

The attack on the automakers coincided with rising tension between Trump and the Democratic governors of New York and Michigan, who have criticized the administration's response to the COVID-19 epidemic. On Thursday evening, Trump questioned in an interview on the Fox News network whether New York state needed 30,000 ventilators to cope with rising numbers of coronavirus patients, as Cuomo had said.

 

GM and Ford separately announced earlier this week they were working with medical equipment companies to help boost ventilator production.

 

GM and its partner Ventec confirmed after Trump's tweets that the No. 1 U.S. automaker would deploy 1,000 workers to build ventilators at its Kokomo, Indiana, parts plant and ship as soon as next month. It was aiming to build more than 10,000 per month with the ability to go higher. Suppliers in the effort were told the target was 200,000 ventilators.

 

But early Friday, before GM issued its release, Trump attacked the automaker and Chief Executive Mary Barra on Twitter, reviving his grievance with Barra for closing and selling a car factory in Ohio, a state critical to the president's re-election campaign.

 

"General Motors MUST immediately open their stupidly abandoned Lordstown plant in Ohio, or some other plant, and START MAKING VENTILATORS, NOW!!!!!! FORD, GET GOING ON VENTILATORS, FAST!!!!!!" Trump wrote on Twitter on Friday.

 

"They said they were going to give us 40,000 much needed ventilators, 'very quickly'," Trump said on Twitter of GM and Ventec's effort. "Now they are saying it will only be 6000, in late April, and they want top dollar."

 

Trump's comments about GM and Ford came after a New York Times story Thursday suggested the White House had backed away from announcing a major ventilator deal with GM and Ventec because the price tag was too high. That drew criticism from Democrats.

 

Following Trump's tweets, Ford said it was moving as fast as it could to gear up its ventilator manufacturing efforts and was in "active conversations" with the Trump administration seeking approvals. Ford said it has "teams working flat-out with GE Healthcare to boost production of simplified ventilators."

 

Other automakers have said they are working to produce ventilators, masks and other medical equipment.

 

On Friday, Toyota Motor Corp said it was "finalizing agreements to begin working with at least two companies that produce ventilators and respirators to help increase their capacity."

 

New York City Mayor Bill be Blasio on Friday said on Twitter that Tesla Inc had agreed to donate hundreds of ventilators to hospital intensive care units in New York City and the state of New York.

 

    Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk in response said the electric carmaker was helping locate and deliver existing ventilators.

 

    Tesla on Friday did not respond to a request for comment on where it got the ventilators and whether the company was producing any ventilators of its own, something Musk has said the company will do.

 

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV (FCA) and Ferrari previously said they were exploring making ventilators in Italy.

 

(Reporting by David Shepardson and Ben Klayman; Additional reporting by Tina Bellon in New York and Diane Bartz, Steve Holland in Washington; Editing by Doina Chiacu, Diane Craft and Daniel Wallis)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2020-03-28

Follow Thaivisa on LINE for breaking COVID-19 updates

 

Trump is totally in the right. Capitalism takes a back seat in times of National Emergency.

Should only take GM a day or 2 to convert the factories from making cars to medical equipment !!

38 minutes ago, rooster59 said:

Trump expressed anger with the company's decision to close an assembly plant in politically important Ohio.

To him of cause........its always about him.

regards Worgeordie 

8 minutes ago, Don Mega said:

Should only take GM a day or 2 to convert the factories from making cars to medical equipment !!

 

Yeah, probably:

 

Oddly, Trump has not published any document with his signature on it enacting the Defense Production Act.

 

No fanfare signing ceremony, no official government a announcement.

 

 

A leaf-blower, pool pump or Roomba manufacturing company could probably do better?

 

(Yes, I know Dyson is hard at work.)

3 minutes ago, mtls2005 said:

A leaf-blower, pool pump or Roomba manufacturing company could probably do better?

 

(Yes, I know Dyson is hard at work.)

Or a blow hard.

2 minutes ago, mtls2005 said:

A leaf-blower, pool pump or Roomba manufacturing company could probably do better?

 

(Yes, I know Dyson is hard at work.)

 

That's what I was thinking. A manufacturer of vacuum pumps or almost any other air handling manufacurer would seem a better fit.

3 minutes ago, worgeordie said:

To him of cause........its always about him.

regards Worgeordie 

Well closing a plant means something to the workers and people too, does it not?

 

I dont kow why GM was dilly dallying, Ford has been making them quickly.

 

If you look at the ventilator above, you can see why an auto company is uniquely suited to make ventilators. Molded parts, tubing, springs, valves, cover. While many parts are subcontracted, its hard for me to imagine it would take very long to repurpose a spring they already have thousands of. And it would take a good job shop probably 48 hours to start pumping out valve parts in the thousands assuming they had the material and program.

 

The USA is the best in the world at pumping stuff out once we get going. We have done it before and we will do it again. And yes there are delays, just like the Marines biatched at Guadalcanal because they were using bolt action pre 1900 design rifles while the Army boys had Garands.

 

And yes folks die. But thats war. And its a war against the virus that the Chinese unleashed upon the world that we are all paying for. And we arent going to lose.

 

I find it quite ironic that many of the folks who were quaking in their politcal boots and squalling that our Pres was going to be a dictator are no squalling for him to be a dictator.

5 minutes ago, lannarebirth said:

 

Yeah, probably:

 

 

i sure hope there are some adults in the administration handling this!  trump has no experience in manufacturing.  his business experience has all been about making the deal, not making stuff.

 

does he understand those automobile factories don't actually manufacture anything at all?  they take components and assemblies from hundreds of other factories around the world, run 'em through a highly-efficient, robotic assembly line, and basically bolt and paste cars together.

 

i get the idea he has this image from old black-&-white cartoons in his head, the kind he'd see before the main feature when he went to the "talkies" as a kid.  you got a confever belt moved by teams of elves with long beards manually turning cranks.  haha, and sometimes one would get his beard caught in the gears.  hilarity would ensue!  anyhoo, wads of raw materials would get dumped on the conveyer belt - gears, springs, flowers, cows with funny faces - as the belt moved sometimes this huge pressure vessel would drop down, there'd be some noise and shaking and stars and lines would shoot off, the vessel would rise, and voila! a shiny new widget!

 

anyhoo, he's got article 44 power now, along with executive orders.  they already blew $2 trillion on pork projects, so what's another billion?  just make nice with xi who has the factories running right now as we type.  ask nice and i'm sure he can ramp up production and give us 100K ventilators to our spec at half the price by the middle of april.

Surely a more effective action would be to compel the companies who hold patents and approved designs to license their designs to other manufacturers.

 

Doing so would negate the need for the companies using the licensed designs spending time designing and obtaining approval.

Crimson Contagion, August, 2019, Mock Drill.

 

https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/6824-2019-10-key-findings-and-after/05bd797500ea55be0724/optimized/full.pdf

 

Key findings: 

 

Insufficient federal funding sources for a severe influenza pandemic
Confusion on how to apply the Defense Production Act
The current medical supply chain and production capacity could not meet the demand
Global manufacturing would be unable to meet the domestic demand for personal protective equipment and ancillary supplies

 

Though both the report and Dr. Arwady commend many federal agencies for working together and devising response strategies, the pandemic exercise predicted dire consequences--110 million illnesses, 7.7 million hospitalizations and 586,000 deaths, all in the U.S. in the absence of a coordinated national response.

 

https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/crimson-contagion-2019-simulation-warned-of-pandemic-implications-in-us/2243832/

 

 

4 minutes ago, lannarebirth said:

 

That's what I was thinking. A manufacturer of vacuum pumps or almost any other air handling manufacurer would seem a better fit.

In the short-term with low production numbers, I believe you are correct.

In the long-term with the need for consistently high production numbers & quality control, the automated assembly lines, the logistics of maintaining 'Just in Time' supply chain and their experienced workforce would IMO give the automakers an edge in this crisis. 
 

That being said, those manufacturing the components required for the final assembly (air-handling equipment,  pumps, delivery devices and similar) should be part of this effort.

12 minutes ago, Nyezhov said:

Well closing a plant means something to the workers and people too, does it not?

 

I dont kow why GM was dilly dallying, Ford has been making them quickly.

 

If you look at the ventilator above, you can see why an auto company is uniquely suited to make ventilators. Molded parts, tubing, springs, valves, cover. While many parts are subcontracted, its hard for me to imagine it would take very long to repurpose a spring they already have thousands of. And it would take a good job shop probably 48 hours to start pumping out valve parts in the thousands assuming they had the material and program.

 

 

 

 

It would take months (possibly years) to design/engineer/prototype/tool up a ventilator.

 

Then there is the legal side of making and selling medical equipment... But then I guess Trump could order this to be bypassed but Lawyers would have a field day if a person dies because of a faulty machine !!

Edited March 28, 20206 yr by Don Mega

6 minutes ago, ChouDoufu said:

does he understand those automobile factories don't actually manufacture anything at all?  they take components and assemblies from hundreds of other factories around the world, run 'em through a highly-efficient, robotic assembly line, and basically bolt and paste cars together.

Untrue. The automobile companies have stamping plants, machine shops, molding facilities etc. They stock millions of different parts and nuts and bolts in vast warehouses and have access to billions more. The method of final assembly of vehicles has nothing to do with their capability to make anything else.

More to do with his election prospects diminishing perhaps?

5 minutes ago, Nyezhov said:

Untrue. The automobile companies have stamping plants, machine shops, molding facilities etc. They stock millions of different parts and nuts and bolts in vast warehouses and have access to billions more. The method of final assembly of vehicles has nothing to do with their capability to make anything else.

They make very little in house.

48 minutes ago, exparte said:

Trump is totally in the right. Capitalism takes a back seat in times of National Emergency.

Trump is an idiot who is now panicking. He should have done this weeks ago, much less months ago. He and John Bolton fired the five person Pandemic team at the NSC in 2018, and his CDC removed the only scientist embedded in the China CDC last summer. He has avoided doing anything that might hurt the economy or the feelings of businesses, because he thinks that might help him win reelection. What he has done so far is deflect blame onto everyone but himself. What this has done is doom his chances for reelection as well as cause tens of thousands of needless deaths.

Edited March 28, 20206 yr by khunyod
expand

4 minutes ago, Thailand said:

More to do with his election prospects diminishing perhaps?

Not according to the polls and the course of politics.

 

 

5 minutes ago, khunyod said:

He and John Bolton fired the five person Pandemic team at the NSC in 2018, and his CDC

I think that this endless blurb has been proven mostly false, even by the loose standards of mainstream media fact checking.

Edited March 28, 20206 yr by Nyezhov

17 minutes ago, Nyezhov said:

Untrue. The automobile companies have stamping plants, machine shops, molding facilities etc. They stock millions of different parts and nuts and bolts in vast warehouses and have access to billions more. The method of final assembly of vehicles has nothing to do with their capability to make anything else.

gm had already announced they were planning to make ventilators with one of their suppliers.  it would be at one of ventec's component manufacturing plants.

 

trump however wants to git 'er done at the "stupidly abandoned" lordstown cruze assembly line.  (*)

 

(*) edit to add:  gm no longer owns the facility, it was sold to lordstown motors.

 

Edited March 28, 20206 yr by ChouDoufu

5 minutes ago, Chomper Higgot said:

Surely a more effective action would be to compel the companies who hold patents and approved designs to license their designs to other manufacturers.

 

Doing so would negate the need for the companies using the licensed designs spending time designing and obtaining approval.

 

Very un-American.

 

I'm guessing, corrections welcome, that the US government would have to own (buy/lease) licences and then give them to other manufacturers.

 

If it was wartime (for military use) they would commission and pay for a design, pass it to other manufacturers, then buy the materiel from those manufacturers.

 

That's how arms manufacturers became so rich during WW1 & 2.

 

Not same in Socialist countries of course.

 

Just tell a Design Bureau/manufacturer to design something and then tell other factories to produce them.

 

Once again, corrections welcome.

 

 

 

2 minutes ago, Nyezhov said:

Not according to the polls and the course of politics.

 

 

 

Yeah, one has to admit, he's still got a shot. If Trump is an F student, Biden's no better than a D.

1 minute ago, ChouDoufu said:

gm had already announced they were planning to make ventilators with one of their suppliers.  it would be at one of ventec's component manufacturing plants.

whats your point.... they werent moving fast enough?

 

1 minute ago, ChouDoufu said:

trump however wants to git 'er done at the stupidly closed lordstown cruze assembly line.

Really? Even assuming he wants that, or thinks its feasible, thats not his call is it.

 

But hey, Id say the same thing. You guys got an empty plant, use it, lol. Put some folks to work.

 

 

4 minutes ago, ChouDoufu said:

gm had already announced they were planning to make ventilators with one of their suppliers.  it would be at one of ventec's component manufacturing plants.

 

trump however wants to git 'er done at the stupidly closed lordstown cruze assembly line.

 

 

Yeah, that is going to be a tough one, as GM sold their Lordstown plant last year.

3 minutes ago, lannarebirth said:

 

Yeah, one has to admit, he's still got a shot. If Trump is an F student, Biden's no better than a D.

Yeah but the way Biden has been appearing in Interviews, by the time November comes, he will be getting that D in Kindergarden, poor guy. 

Just now, Nyezhov said:

Yeah but the way Biden has been appearing in Interviews, by the time November comes, he will be getting that D in Kindergarden, poor guy. 

Yeah, it's a race to the bottom, for sure.

3 minutes ago, Nyezhov said:

 

But hey, Id say the same thing. You guys got an empty plant, use it, lol. Put some folks to work.

 

 

Do you have any idea how these big OEM's work ?.

 

Its going to take a lot more than a click of the fingers to make it happen.... A whole lot more.

Edited March 28, 20206 yr by Don Mega

1 hour ago, rooster59 said:

Tesla on Friday did not respond to a request for comment on where it got the ventilators and whether the company was producing any ventilators of its own, something Musk has said the company will do.

Easy enough to find out where they got them from... read the news. 
 

Coronavirus: Tesla donates hundreds of ventilators to New York https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-52071314