President Donald Trump

announced Friday

that he would invoke powers granted to him under the Defense Production Act to order General Motors to begin producing ventilators to address a nationwide shortage amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to a statement released by the White House on Friday, Trump said that he was having "productive talks" with GM regarding the company's offer to make ventilators but that he was invoking the act because "the fight agianst the virus is too urgent to allow the give-and-take of the contracting process to continue to run its normal course."

Trump's statement comes hours after he tweeted that GM needed to "immediately open their stupidly abandoned Lordstown plant in Ohio, or some other plant, and START MAKING VENTILATORS, NOW!!!!!!" In an earlier tweet, he threatened to "invoke P," which he later clarified referred to the DPA.

During a call with Fox News on Thursday,

Trump questioned

whether some states needed the number of ventilators they were requesting.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has

pleaded with the federal government

to address a ventilator shortage in his state, the hardest hit by the coronavirus.

This story is breaking and will be updated.