Trump says he’s helping Chinese telecom company that broke US sanctions selling products to Iran and North Korea

The US and China are set to discuss overall trade issues soon

(JOHANNES EISELE/AFP/Getty Images)

China has said it "greatly appreciates the positive US position on the ZTE issue" after US President Donald Trump said the US Commerce Department has been “instructed to get it done” to save jobs at China’s biggest telecommunications company, ZTE, which broke US sanctions laws with North Korea and Iran.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said China welcomed the US president's efforts to help regain jobs for the telecommunications giant just ahead of the two countries' trade negotiations. Mr Trump tweeted on 13 March: "Too many jobs in China lost. Commerce Department has been instructed to get it done!" The White House later said it expected Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to make a decision about ZTE independently.

ZTE admitted to illegally selling equipment made with American components to Iran. This was even before Mr Trump’s decision that the US would no longer participate in the six-party Iran nuclear deal and renew and place even more sanctions on Tehran. The company also sold products to North Korea, which the US and United Nations have placed strict sanctions upon until it agrees to halt development on its nuclear programme.

Mr Ross said at the time that the company’s “egregious behaviour cannot be ignored” and again noted today that the company did violate US sanctions. In light of the president’s tweet, Mr Ross said that the sanctions on ZTE are an “enforcement action, separate from trade”.

However, he noted that his agency will “explore promptly alternative remedies” for ZTE to possibly re-enter the US market.

Members of Congress like Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer are opposed to Mr Trump’s efforts to work with Chinese President Xi Jinping to bring back jobs to the company. "One of the few areas where the president and I agreed, and I was vocally supportive, was his approach towards China. But even here he is backing off, and his policy is now designed to achieve one goal: make China great again,” Mr Schumer said.

Democratic Senator Ron Wyden questioned the timing of the president’s remark. "Unilateral concessions before an upcoming trade negotiation. This may be the art of the deal for China but it's a big loser for American workers, companies, and national security," he said.

But, criticism was not limited to the opposition party. Republican Senator and erstwhile presidential candidate Marco Rubio said the US would be “crazy” to allow China to operate in US markets without more restrictions.

"I hope this isn't the beginning of backing down to China," Mr Rubio tweeted, ahead of the upcoming trade talks between Beijing and Washington. He noted that China has “unrestricted” access to the American market, but that American companies have been “ruined” because China blocked its market to them and “stole their intellectual property”.

It was just in April 2018 that the US Department of Commerce had forbidden American companies from selling ZTE products for at least seven years after the admission the company had sold its goods to Iran and North Korea.

The company shut its main business operations last week as a result. Sources briefed on the matter told Reuters Beijing had demanded the ZTE issue be resolved as a prerequisite for broader trade negotiations set to take place soon.