国际英语新闻:Spotlight: Trump orders GM to produce ventilators under DPA as COVID-19 cases continue to sp

WASHINGTON, March 27 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump said Friday he ordered General Motors (GM) to produce ventilators under the Defense Production Act, a wartime law he recently invoked to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Today, I signed a Presidential Memorandum directing the Secretary of Health and Human Services to use any and all authority available under the Defense Production Act to require General Motors to accept, perform, and prioritize federal contracts for ventilators," Trump said in a statement.

"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," Trump said.

"GM was wasting time. Today's action will help ensure the quick production of ventilators that will save American lives," added the president.

GM, in a statement cited by CNBC, reiterated that employees with Ventec, GM and their supply base "have been working around the clock for over a week to meet this urgent need."

"Our commitment to build Ventec's high-quality critical care ventilator, VOCSN, has never wavered," the company said. "The partnership between Ventec and GM combines global expertise in manufacturing quality and a joint commitment to safety to give medical professionals and patients access to life-saving technology as rapidly as possible. The entire GM team is proud to support this initiative."

The order came at a time when state and local officials have been crying for increased supplies of critical medical equipment from the federal government, with Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York State sounding one of the most striking alarms.

Cuomo, a Democrat and New York native, said at a news briefing Tuesday that his state needs 30,000 additional ventilators to meet the exploding demand, as the state now leads all other states in both confirmed cases and fatalities. "Only the federal government has that power. And not to exercise that power is inexplicable to me," he said.

However, Vice President Pence said on the same day that only 4,000 ventilators will be shipped to the state, while Trump questioned Cuomo's number in an interview with Fox News on Thursday night.

"We desperately needed the Defense Production Act invoked to ensure the production of life-saving ventilators," Cuomo tweeted shortly after Trump's GM announcement. "We are relieved that just happened."

Passed by Congress in 1950 as a response to the Korean War, the DPA authorizes the president to direct companies to increase the production of national defense-related items. It also entitles the president to control the distribution of supplies deemed critical.

Trump signed an executive order on March 18 invoking the law, amid the drastically deteriorating situation the country faced in the coronavirus outbreak. The president had been unwilling to actually use the law in the following days, claiming it was unnecessary for the time being.

In another development, Peter Gaynor, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), told cnn on Tuesday morning that the agency will procure some 60,000 test kits under the DPA, while also applying the law to the government's contracts with the private sector involving 500 million masks.

Hours later, though, FEMA press secretary Lizzie Litzow changed course, saying in a statement: "At the last minute we were able to procure the test kits from the private market without evoking the DPA."

In the United States, which has become the global epicenter of the pandemic, confirmed cases of COVID-19 have surpassed 100,000, and death toll has risen past 1,500, according to Johns Hopkins University's latest data tracking country-by-country numbers.