A Russian asbestos company has branded their product with President Trump’s face.
Uralasbest, which operates a mine in the Ural Mountains, has stamped Trump’s image on pallets of asbestos with the words, “Approved by Donald Trump, 45th President of the United States,” The Guardian reported Wednesday.
The company posted a picture of pallets full of Trump stamps on its Facebook page last month with a caption that said, “Donald is on our side.”
“He supported the head of the United States Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, who stated that his agency would no longer deal with negative effects potentially derived from products containing asbestos. Donald Trump supported a specialist and called asbestos ‘100% safe after application,'” it said, according to a translation from the Environmental Working Group.
Pruitt stepped down from the federal regulatory agency last week following a rash of scandals, but not before the EPA decided not to ban “new uses” of asbestos products.
Asbestos, once used in building construction as a fire retardant and as insulation, is classified as a “known carcinogen” and is mostly banned.
The mining company reportedly has ties to President Vladimir Putin and is located in Asbest, which was known as “dying city” because of the high rate of lung cancer and other illnesses associated with asbestos, the newspaper reported.
Trump is expected to meet with Putin July 16 in Helsinki for a one-on-one summit.
In the past, the president has not found asbestos to be a problem, remarking in 2012 that the World Trade Center would not have burned on 9/11 if asbestos hadn’t been removed from the building.
And in his 1997 book, “The Art of the Comeback,” he said it is “100% safe, once applied.”
“Vladimir Putin and Russia’s asbestos industry stand to prosper mightily as a result of the Trump administration’s failure to ban asbestos in the US,” said Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group.
The EPA did not immediately respond to requests for comment.