Trump says ZTE hasn’t yet received reprieve

President Donald Trump said the US hasn’t yet taken any action to ease penalties on Chinese telecommunications manufacturer ZTE Corp.

“Nothing has happened with ZTE except as it pertains to the larger trade deal,” Trump said in a series of tweets yesterday.

“We have not seen China’s demands yet, which should be few in that previous US Administrations have done so poorly in negotiating,” Trump said. “China has seen our demands.”

Chinese Vice Premier Liu He — who is Xi’s top aide for economic matters — arrived in Washington this week for talks with the Trump administration on ways to resolve the trade dispute between the two countries.

Liu will spend four days in the US for trade talks with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, his second visit this year. An earlier round of talks this month in Beijing ended in discord.

“There has been no folding as the media would love people to believe, the meetings haven’t even started yet!” he added.

Shock tweet

Trump shocked many in Washington with a tweet Sunday that he was working with Chinese President Xi Jinping to give ZTE “a way to get back into business, fast.” Trump said “too many jobs in China” had been lost and that his Commerce Department “has been instructed to get it done!”

The announcement from Trump drew swift condemnation from both Republican and Democratic lawmakers. It was an abrupt shift from the campaign Trump has mounted against Chinese technology companies, which he regularly accuses of stealing American intellectual property and exploiting unfair trade rules.