President Trump employed the Defense Production Act (DPA), enacted in 1950 to give the executive brand the authority to expedite the manufacturing of supplies needed to promote the national defense, over 78 times during COVID-19. The president uses the DPA to ramp up manufacturing of N95 masks, ventilators and other COVID-19 prevention supplies. All of the manufacturing occurred in America.
The White House released a detailed report on President Trump’s use of the DPA, as well as executive orders, to combat COVID-19 and expedite manufacturing of critical supplies.
Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) said that the report was both “propaganda” and a “political stunt,” and attributed the release to an effort to “distract” from the president’s failures. Sen. Brown did not acknowledge the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) role in the growth of COVID-19.
The White House’s Director of Trade and Manufacturing Policy and a top advisor to President Trump, Peter Navarro, called Sen. Brown a “China apologist” for his comments about President Trump’s use of the DPA:
“The only propaganda being pushed is by China Apologists like Sherrod Brown who, along with Joe Biden, stood by over the last decade while China stole millions of jobs from the factories of Ohio. Now Brown is falsely blaming President Trump for a deadly virus maliciously exported to America by the Chinese Communist Party while Brown’s own Democrat Party promotes a $4 trillion tax hike that will kill jobs for American working families,” Navarro said. “Here’s the truth: President Trump has used the DPA to engineer the most rapid mobilization of America’s industrial base since WWII and the Trump action plan is producing more than enough essential medicines and supplies to protect Americans.”
President Trump’s use of the DPA is completely appropriate given the unprecedented circumstances created by COVID-19, and the usage has only benefited Americans. The White House’s report shows transparency from the administration as to how the DPA is being used. President Trump’s use of the DPA to protect Americans and fight a virus that originated from China does not constitute “propaganda” as Sen. Brown claims.
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