US President Donald Trump might include Chinese telecommunications companies Huawei Technologies Co (華為) and ZTE Corp (中興通訊) in the trade deal being negotiated between the US and China, he said on Friday.
The US Department of Justice has charged Huawei and chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou (孟晚舟) with conspiring to violate US sanctions on Iran by conducting business through a subsidiary that it tried to hide. The US is seeking Meng’s extradition.
In a separate case, the Justice Department charged the telecom equipment maker with stealing robotic technology from T-Mobile US Inc.
Huawei has said that the companies settled their dispute in 2017.
US officials are not talking about dropping charges against Huawei, Trump told reporters at the White House.
Huawei will be raised with US attorneys and the attorney general in the coming weeks, but “right now it’s not something that we’re discussing,” Trump said.
Last year, Chinese peer ZTE was prevented from buying essential components from US firms after pleading guilty to similar charges, crippling its operations.
ZTE resumed normal business after paying up to US$1.4 billion in fines and replacing its entire board, on top of a nearly US$900 million penalty paid in 2017.
It is not clear how ZTE could be involved in any trade agreement.
Trump said there was “a very good chance” that the US would strike a deal with China to end their trade war and that he was inclined to extend his tariff deadline on Friday and meet Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) soon.
US and Chinese negotiators have made progress and were to extend this week’s round of negotiations by two days through tpday, Trump told reporters at the White House as he met with his top negotiators and their counterpart, Chinese Vice Premier Liu He (劉鶴).
Trump said that he probably would meet with Xi in Florida next month to decide on the most important terms of a trade deal.
Trump and US Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin said that the two sides had reached an agreement on currency.
Trump declined to give more details, but US officials have long expressed concerns that the Chinese yuan is undervalued, giving China a trade advantage and partly offsetting US tariffs.
Negotiators have struggled this week to agree on specific language within six memorandums to address tough US demands, sources familiar with the talks said.
Those memorandums cover cybertheft, intellectual property rights, services, agriculture and non-tariff barriers to trade, including subsidies.
An industry source briefed on the talks said that both sides have narrowed differences on intellectual property rights, market access and narrowing a nearly US$400 billion US trade deficit with China.
However, bigger differences remain on changes to China’s treatment of state-owned enterprises, subsidies, forced technology transfer and cybertheft of US trade secrets, they said.
The US Chamber of Commerce urged the US government to ensure that the deal would be comprehensive, addressing core issues, rather than based on more Chinese short-term purchases of goods.
China on Friday committed to buying an additional 10 million tonnes of US soybeans, US Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue said on Twitter.
China bought about 32 million tonnes of US soybeans in 2017.
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