China syndromeLawmakers fume as Trump allows select U.S. firms to supply Huawei
National security hawks who normally side with U.S. President Donald Trump on foreign policy issues are up in arms over his announcement on Saturday that he would indefinitely delay the imposition of tariffs on $300 billion of Chinese goods and relax restrictions on U.S. firms doing business with Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei.
National security hawks who normally side with U.S. President Donald Trump on foreign policy issues are up in arms over his announcement on Saturday that he would indefinitely delay the imposition of tariffs on $300 billion of Chinese goods and relax restrictions on U.S. firms doing business with Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei.
In a news conference Saturday that followed a bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Group of 20 summit in Osaka, Japan, Trump said: “U.S. companies can sell their equipment to Huawei. We’re talking about equipment where there’s no great national security problem with it.
“Entity List”
This represents a sharp reversal by Trump, whose administration on May 16 added the company to the “Entity List” kept by the federal Commerce Department. Inclusion on that list is viewed as a sort of death penalty for foreign firms, because it prevents U.S. companies from doing business with them without express permission from the Commerce Department.
In an announcement at the time, the department’s Bureau of Industry and Security said, “The U.S. Government has determined that there is reasonable cause to believe that Huawei has been involved in activities contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States.”
The company has been caught stealing trade secrets, evading U.S. bans on transferring technology to Iran, and is suspected — though never proven — to be an arm of the Chinese intelligence services.
Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, an ally of the president, appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and told moderator Chuck Todd, “I’m very concerned about Huawei. I think they are a threat to our national security.”
Asked if he thought Trump had made a mistake, Barrasso said, “I know the president is a dealmaker. He is working on this. I would not allow Huawei, certainly, into our country. He’s making decisions about what our country and companies can sell overseas, to Huawei.
“To me, Huawei in the United States would be like a Trojan horse ready to steal more information from us,” he added.
There is an important distinction to be made in the discussions surrounding U.S. policy toward Huawei that often gets lost.
