Washington (AFP)

US President Donald Trump on Friday invoked a Korean War law to force General Motors to produce artificial respirators, essential in the fight against coronavirus.

"GM was wasting time," Trump said in a brief statement expressing his exasperation at the American automaker with whom he said negotiations were dragging on.

This exceptional measure is based on the "Defense Production Act" which allows the federal government to mobilize the private industrial sector for the security needs of the country.

Many elected Democrats have been calling the American president for several days to take the plunge to allow the United States to face this unprecedented health crisis.

The need for respiratory ventilation devices in the United States, as elsewhere, is enormous. These help save people with breathing difficulties, one of the serious symptoms of coronavirus.

The governor of New York State, Andrew Cuomo, has been calling the White House for several days to provide it urgently to deal with the peak of the epidemic, which he says will intervene in three weeks.

"Today I signed a decree ordering the Minister of Health to use the Defense Production Act to require General Motors to accept, carry out and prioritize federal contracts for respirators", wrote the tenant of the White House.

"This decision will ensure rapid production of artificial respirators that will save American lives," he added.

Earlier in the day, he had frankly expressed his exasperation with the automotive group.

"General Motors MUST immediately open its stupidly abandoned factory in Lordstown, Ohio, or another factory and START PRODUCING RESPIRATORS NOW !!!!!!", he tweeted.

- Virulent tweets against GM -

In another tweet, he attacked the famous car group even more virulently.

"As always with + this + General Motors, nothing seems to be working," he said, ensuring that the group had promised to supply 40,000 respirators "very quickly" and that it was now only talking about 6,000 units by the end of April, at a high cost.

Donald Trump's impatient tweets contrasted with his statements on Thursday evening on Fox News where he downplayed the need for artificial respirators. "I don't think there is a need for 40,000 or 30,000 respirators," he said.

For their part, GM and Ventec Life Systems, a manufacturer of medical devices, announced Friday an agreement to manufacture artificial respirators, without however giving the slightest indication of the expected volumes.

The first copies, approved by the Federal Medicines Agency (FDA), will be delivered in April, the two companies said in a joint statement.

These respirators will be manufactured at the General Motors plant in Kokomo, Indiana, said the automaker, which will also produce masks for doctors at its factory in Warren (Michigan).

To try to silence any controversy, the automaker assured that it would not make a profit on this production and that it would be satisfied with the reimbursement of its costs.

About a thousand GM employees will work on the manufacture of these artificial respirators, it was said from the same source.

© 2020 AFP