President Donald Trump and 3M (NYSE:MMM) today agreed that the manufacturing conglomerate will import an additional 166.5 million respirators from its China plant over the next three months.
The imports will come on top of the 35 million N95 respirators per month that 3M is presently manufacturing in the United States.
The deal — which Trump in a news conference today described as “very amicable” — comes days after the president invoked the Defense Production Act over 3M and the respirators, saying that the Maplewood, Minn.–based company would “have a big price to pay.”
Today, Trump said: “The 3M saga ends very happily. … Great company.”
3M CEO Mike Roman in a news release thanked Trump and his administration: “We share the same goals of providing much-needed respirators to Americans across our country and combating criminals who seek to take advantage of the current crisis.”
3M said the plan enables the company to continue sending U.S.-produced respirators to Canada and Latin America, where 3M is the primary source of supply.
Starting in January, 3M doubled its global output of N95 masks to 1.1 billion per year — and is taking actions to double the amount again to 2 billion within 12 months.