A curious trade war retreat

As a candidate, Donald Trump reamed China for “raping” our country. As President, he has imposed massive tariffs on Chinese products, setting off a trade war. Enter ZTE, a Chinese telecom firm that has admitted to violating vital U.S. sanctions on both Iran and North Korea — and was about to be harshly penalized by the U.S. for it.

On Saturday, the President, never one to sympathize with foreign corporations in public, said he and China’s President Xi Jinping “are working together to give” ZTE “a way to get back into business, fast,” quizzically citing “Too many jobs in China lost.”

Either the accommodation is a mature bid to cool down the broader economic conflict, a belated presidential admission that trade wars are not, as he said not long ago, “good, and easy to win.”

Or it’s a sudden reaction to the fact that the Chinese government just gave a $500 million loan in a Trump Organization project in Indonesia.

Take your pick.