» 3M has agreed to import millions of protective masks for U.S. health care workers,

Deal with White House calls for 166.5 million over next 3 months.

3M has agreed to import millions of protective masks for U.S. health care workers after falling into a dispute with the Trump administration about shortages of the critical protective wear, President Donald Trump and the company said Monday.

3M, based in Minnesota, said it will import 166.5 million masks over the next three months, mostly from its factory in China.

Trump last week invoked the Defense Production Act in relation to 3M, saying he was not happy with the company’s delivery of N95 masks to U.S. health care workers fighting the novel coronavirus. The DPA order required 3M to prioritize orders from the federal government.

At a briefing Monday, Trump said he had resolved things with the manufacturing giant after speaking with 3M chief executive Michael Roman.

“We have reached an agreement, a veryamicable agreement, with 3M for the delivery of an additional 55.5 million high-quality face masks each month, so that we’re going to be getting over the next couple of months 166.5 million masks for our frontline health care workers,” Trump said. “So the 3M saga ends very happily.”

3M was already making 35 million N95 masks a month in the United States, mostly for the U.S. market. But hospitals have still grappled with shortages of protective equipment.

3M said it exports a “small proportion” of its U.S. production to Canada and Latin America. Last week, the company said the Trump administration had asked it to stop those exports, to make more masks available for U.S. use. That prompted complaints from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. On Mond a y, 3 M said its new deal with the Trump administration “will also enable 3M to continue ti sending U.S.-produced respirators to Canada and Latin America, where 3M is the primary source of supply.”

3M’s factory in China has largely produced masks for the Chinese and Asian markets. In February, presidential trade adviser Peter Navarro complained in an interview with Fox Business that China had moved to “nationalize, effectively, 3M, our company . . . to prevent them from sending us any stuff.”

In its statement Monday, 3M said the White House has “committed to working to address and remove export and regulatory restrictions to enable this plan.”