President Donald Trump says he is working with Chinese President Xi Jinping to keep the Chinese company ZTE Corp. in business. He tweeted this out on Sunday:
Trump's bizarre effort comes just a month after an order was issued by Trump banning U.S. companies from selling components to ZTE until 2025.President Xi of China, and I, are working together to give massive Chinese phone company, ZTE, a way to get back into business, fast. Too many jobs in China lost. Commerce Department has been instructed to get it done!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 13, 2018
Trump shouldn't have put the ban on in the first place but did he not think his ban would have repercussions?
ZTE, which relies on billions of dollars in component imports from U.S. tech firms such as Qualcomm Inc. and Intel Corp., has warned the ban threatened its survival.
ZTE was the fourth-largest mobile phone vendor in the U.S., selling 19 million phones in America last yea.r
Last week, the company said it had ceased major business operations, reports The Wall Street Journal.
Now Trump is concerned.
But whenever Trump puts tariffs on or, bans sales or institutes sanctions it means distortions in the global economy. The impact on ZTE is obvious because it is a very large company but Trump should realize the same thing is occurring with many small companies in any country where he meddles with free trade.
But one wonders, will he get the big picture point that tariffs and sanctions are harmful or will he consider the ZTE crisis an individual case?
Sadly, it will probably be the latter.
-Robert Wenzel
Trump must wonder how anyone ever had a job before he came along to negotiate one for them.
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