Many people have suggested as much over the past two years, but this is the first indication from a first-hand witness that President Donald Trump’s policy on the vendors was shaped by commercial and electoral considerations rather than perceived security issues.
In an extract from his new book, to be published next Tuesday, former US national security adviser John Bolton shows that Trump was willing to ease action against the two suppliers – for a price.
“Trump … saw this not as a policy issue to be resolved but as an opportunity to make personal gestures to [Chinese President] Xi,” writes Bolton (pictured) in an extract published in the Wall Street Journal last night.
“In 2018, for example, he reversed penalties that [commerce secretary Wilbur] Ross and the Commerce Department had imposed on ZTE. In 2019, he offered to reverse criminal prosecution against Huawei if it would help in the trade deal – which, of course, was primarily about getting Trump re-elected in 2020.”
The White House has been trying to ban publication of Bolton’s book, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir, to be published on 23 June.
In the extract, Bolton expresses sympathy with the measures taken against Huawei and ZTE, writing: “Ross and others repeatedly pushed to strictly enforce US regulations and criminal laws against fraudulent conduct, including both firms’ flouting of US sanctions against Iran and other rogue states.”
The US started action against ZTE when it uncovered documents showing the company had conspired to include US hardware and software in equipment sold to Iran via intermediaries. In the documents, ZTE clearly stated that it was following the example of another Chinese company, understood to be Huawei.
ZTE paid a US$1.4 billion fine to the US in 2018; Huawei continues to deny any wrongdoing. Its CFO, Meng Wanzhou, is under house arrest in Canada facing extradition to the US over issues related to selling to Iran, and the company is on the Department of Commerce entity list, banning US companies and citizens from trading with it.
Bolton alleges in the Wall Street Journal extract: “The most important goal for Chinese ‘companies’ [his inverted commas] like Huawei and ZTE is to infiltrate telecommunications and information-technology systems, notably 5G, and subject them to Chinese control.” Huawei and ZTE deny such allegations.
Bolton writes: “These and innumerable other similar conversations with Trump formed a pattern of fundamentally unacceptable behavior that eroded the very legitimacy of the presidency.”
