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Just about everything is odd about Trump’s support of Chinese firm ZTE

Rogue Valley

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Just about everything is odd about Trump’s support of Chinese firm ZTE

ZTE-China-Mobile-01.jpg


5/15/18

Just about everything is odd regarding President Trump's recent tweet that he wants to help Chinese technology company ZTE Corp. “get back into business, fast” because its failure cost “too many jobs in China.” It's odd that Trump, who campaigned on saving millions of U.S. jobs, suddenly says he cares about a few thousand Chinese jobs. It's odd that Trump, who championed “America First,” is worried about a single Chinese firm. It's odd that Trump, who has spent months berating the Chinese for stealing U.S. intellectual property, is coming to the rescue of a Chinese telecom company that's trying to compete with American companies like Apple. It's odd that Trump, who wants a strong U.S. military and business climate, is ignoring a House Intelligence Committee report from 2012 that concluded that ZTE “cannot be trusted to be free of foreign state influence and thus pose a security threat to the United States and to our systems.”

It is odd that Trump, who has put extensive sanctions on North Korea and Iran, seems to be willing to forgive ZTE, a company that admitted it illegally shipped telecom equipment to Iran and North Korea. Trump's own Commerce Department's punished ZTE in April for “egregious behavior,” including repeatedly lying to the U.S. government. (Commerce banned U.S. companies from selling critical microchips and other products to ZTE for seven years). And it's especially odd that Trump, who loves to win, appears to be caving so easily. Relief for ZTE is one of China's top demands in the ongoing U.S.-China trade skirmish. “In the middle of a trade dispute, the president is publicly offering a major concession to China that could potentially harm national security,” said Scott Paul, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, a coalition of manufacturers and steelworkers.

Very odd indeed. One of the oddest of Trump's many flip-flops.
 
I think he is going to get his wings clipped here because of the $500m China is investing in the Indonesian project, assuming they are in fact making that investment.
 
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