3M stockholder Geraldo Rivera 'shocked' and 'embarrassed' that masks are being sold to other countries
Geraldo Rivera reacts on 'Fox & Friends' to reports that 3M is selling N95 masks to foreign countries while U.S. health care workers face a shortage.
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American N95 mask-maker 3M's tether to China during the coronavirus pandemic is a "classic example" of how China is holding American manufacturing hostage, Fox News correspondent-at-large Geraldo Rivera said Friday.
In an interview on "Fox & Friends" with hosts Steve Doocy, Ainsley Earhardt, and Brian Kilmeade, Rivera said that he had just bought stock in the company for his children's trust a few weeks ago and was "shocked" and "embarrassed" after accusations that 3M was selling their products to the highest bidder, pushing President Trump to invoke the Defense Protection Act.
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Although founded in Northern Minnesota in 1902, one of 3M's largest plants manufacturing these respirators is located in Shanghai, China.
"China says to 3M: 'You make them here; they stay here. We want them. You cannot export them,'" Rivera said. "So, 3M is caught between a rock and a hard place -- between President Trump and President Xi. Xi is saying 'no exports.' Trump is saying: 'You're an American company, you know, sell your goods to America.'"
"This is a classic example of why we've become addicted to Chinese politics, Chinese manufacture," he asserted. "They are holding us hostage. Even an American company can't export its masks from their Chinese plants to the United States."
3M has doubled mask production since January. The company's N95 masks are considered the gold standard by medical workers and public-health officials, according to The Wall Street Journal.
N-95 face masks made by 3M and other companies are in short supply among healthcare workers treating coronavirus patients.
President Trump slammed 3M in a tweet on Thursday in regards to the company's production of protective masks.
"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!" he wrote Thursday.
"Hopefully they'll be able to do what they are supposed to do," he said at Thursday's daily coronavirus briefing.
"We look forward to working closely with the Administration to implement yesterday’s DPA order. We will continue to maximize the amount of respirators we can produce on behalf of U.S. healthcare workers, as we have every single day since this crisis began," the company wrote in a statement responding to the president's action.
In an interview on CNBC Friday morning, CEO Mike Roman responded to the criticism.
"The idea that 3M is not doing all it can to fight price gouging and unauthorized reselling is absurd. The idea that we’re not doing everything we can to maximize deliveries of respirators in our home country – nothing is further from the truth,” said Roman.
"I think they have to be bused. They've got to be squeezed," Rivera told the "Friends" hosts. "The president has got to take the CEO of 3M and shake them up and say, 'You've got to make a stand here. You've got to insist. Your Chinese landlords let you sell these masks back to your own country.'"
"I think it's outrageous. I think it's a scandal. But, I also think that the president has got to go to the Chinese president and say, 'Listen, you're holding our masks hostage,'" Rivera added.
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"Not only that -- just to add to the outrage -- in early January when the Chinese figured out what the hell was going on with this virus, they bought up masks that were outside China and brought them into China," he continued.
"So, not only are they not letting our masks leave China, they've taken, you know, from the world marketplace...all the masks that are available for sale and brought them into China."
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