President Donald J. Trump visited the Lehigh Valley Thursday to speak at a medical supply distributor and thank workers for their efforts helping fight coronavirus.

He also announced a pledge to increase the nation’s stockpile of personal protective equipment to three months, and to manufacture more of the supplies domestically.

“I’m determined that America will be fully prepared for any future outbreaks, of which we hope there is none,” he said.

Trump spoke at an Owens & Minor Distribution Center near Fogelsville, where workers pack and load shipments of personal protective equipment for the New York-New Jersey-Pennsylvania area.

Standing at a podium in front of a large American flag, Trump credited the workers at the facility with distributing 1.75 million n95 respirators, 3.4 million gloves, and much more.

“Every day you prove that American workers are the best in the world,” he said.

Trump arrived at Lehigh Valley International Airport aboard Air Force One around 2 p.m. Supporters lined up along the roads between the airport and Owens & Minor to greet Trump’s motorcade.

Trump praised the country’s efforts to build testing capacity and acquire hundreds of thousands of ventilators, calling the COVID-19 response the greatest mobilization of American society since World War II.

He also defended his administration’s efforts to produce as many coronavirus tests as possible. He said the United States has done more testing than all other countries in the world combined.

“We have the greatest testing in the world, but we want to get rid of this thing,” he said.

During his speech, Trump yielded the microphone to three Owens & Minor employees. They thanked him for visiting, and their fellow workers for their dedication to distributing the medical supplies needed to protect healthcare workers.

Carol Timm, a safety and training coordinator, told Trump that he would have been proud to see the response when the facility received the order to distribute masks and gowns.

“They don’t stop working until the job is done. Everything they do today saves a life tomorrow. They’re awesome Americans,” she said.

In discussing his plans to rebuild the stockpile, President Trump spoke about his “America First” philosophy which was a theme of his 2016 election campaign. He spoke about returning manufacturing jobs to the United States.

“My goal is to produce everything America needs, then export to the world, including medicines. We’re too reliant on other countries,” he said.

He announced a separate order which will empower the U.S. International Industrial Finance Corporation to invest domestically in factories and pharmaceutical companies which will produce jobs.

He lamented that the coronavirus halted a period of economic success under his administration.

He said that success was ‘artificially’ turned off by coronavirus, but said that doing so probably saved the death toll from coronavirus from soaring into the millions.

“If we wouldn’t have done that we would have lost 2 million people instead of 90,000. Multiply what we have by 20 or by 15. It wouldn’t be acceptable or sustainable,” he said.

Trump briefly addressed Pennsylvania’s response to the virus, expressing his wishes for Gov. Wolf to reopen more of the state.

“We have to get your governor of Pennsylvania to start opening up. You have areas of Pennsylvania that are barely affected and they want to keep them closed,”’ he said.

Trump’s sentiments about reopening the state were echoed by a group of Republican congressmen who greeted him at Lehigh Valley International Airport.

They included Congressman Dan Meuser, whose district includes Schuylkill County and parts of Carbon.

Meuser said he and Trump discussed coronavirus, the CARES Act, and the upcoming elections.

“He’s just trying to be as smart as possible to ensure that we save lives but we don’t destroy livelihoods,” Meuser said.

Meuser said Pennsylvania was a good choice for Trump’s visit because its manufacturers are producing personal protective equipment used to protect workers on the front line, and he understands its importance in the election as well.

“He wants to come here and see what the people are thinking. You can’t do that by just sitting in an isolated place,” he said.