3M CEO defends company after Trump tweet: ‘We are doing everything we can’

by Marty Johnson - 04/03/20 9:49 AM ET

3M CEO Mike Roman on Friday said the manufacturing company is doing all it can to produce masks for health workers after President Trump ripped the company’s performance on Twitter Thursday night.

“The idea that 3M is not doing all it can to fight price-gouging and unauthorized reselling is absurd. The narrative we are not doing everything we can to maximize delivery of respirators in our home country, nothing could be further from the truth,” Roman told CNN.

“We are doing everything we can to maximize our efforts to fight COVID-19 and to support health workers in the U.S.”

Roman added that the company was anxious to work with the administration and would comply with the Defense Production Act, noting that 3M planned on doubling its production in the U.S.

Roman said that 3M had increased its production by millions and that it was currently net importing into the country.

In his tweet Thursday, Trump blasted 3M, warning that the company “will have a big price to pay,” seeming to suggest that 3M was lagging in production.

Earlier on Thursday, Trump announced that he would use the Defense Production Act to force 3M to produce more respirator masks, which are in short supply in the U.S. and other countries battling the pandemic.

N95 respirator masks are viewed as more effective at protecting health workers from the coronavirus than the flimsier surgical masks, hospitals and governors say they are quickly running out.

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!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 3, 2020