Trump Invokes Defense Protection Act, The Pressure is On GM to Produce Ventilators

Jared Evan

“Our negotiations with GM regarding its ability to supply ventilators have 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,” said a statement from the White House. “GM was wasting time. Today’s action will help ensure the quick production of ventilators that will save American lives.”

After attacking GM the president invoked the Defense Production Act on Friday to require General Motors to produce more ventilators to deal with increased hospitalizations due to the spread of the novel coronavirus in the United States.

Trump mentioned the invocation of the DPA as he signed the coronavirus stimulus relief package

As usual with ‘this’ General Motors, things just never seem to work out,” Trump wrote in a tweet. “They said they were going to give us 40,000 much-needed ventilators ‘very quickly.’ Now they are saying it will only be 6000, in late April, and they want top dollar.” Trump tweeted  Friday morning before invoking the Defense Production Act.

Trump made a follow up Tweet: As usual with ‘this’ General Motors, things just never seem to work out,” Trump wrote in a tweet. “They said they were going to give us 40,000 much-needed ventilators ‘very quickly.’ Now they are saying it will only be 6000, in late April, and they want top dollar.”

Gm evidently was not told the president would invoke the Defense Protection

A source told CNN earlier: We announced our partnership ahead of the DPA announcement. We still have not received anything official from the (White House about the order),” the sources tell CNN.

This announcement came after Trump resisting this power for several weeks. Trump  Repeatedly claimed he was or was not using the powers granted him to in the Defense Production Act, which required aides to clarify on multiple occasions that he had not actually used the Korean War-era la.

The Defense Production Act of 1950  is a United States federal law enacted on September 8, 1950 in response to the start of the Korean War. It was part of a broad civil defense and war mobilization effort in the context of the Cold War. Its implementing regulations, the Defense Priorities and Allocation System (DPAS), are located at 15 CFR §§700 to 700.93. Since 1950, the Act has been reauthorized over 50 times. It has been periodically amended and remains in force, FAS.org summarized.

The DPA was used n 2011, President Barack Obama invoked the law to force telecommunications companies, under criminal penalties, to provide detailed information to the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security on the use of foreign-manufactured hardware and software in the companies’ networks, as part of efforts to combat Chinese cyberespionage., Bloomberg reported.

Conservative thinkers are opposed usually to such broad powers  of the federal government.  The liberal side has been criticizing the president of putting ideology first.