5/22:
President Donald Trump said the U.S. is reconsidering penalties against Chinese
telecommunications maker ZTE Corp. as a favor to the country's president Xi
Jinping, prompting members of Congress to warn him against softening the
punishment.
"The president asked me to look into that and I
am doing it," Trump told reporters at the White House.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
6/20:
President Trump urged Republican lawmakers not to scuttle his administration’s
efforts to help the Chinese telecom firm ZTE, warning them that his reprieve
for the company was part of a broader geopolitical negotiating strategy.
Mr. Trump and Republican lawmakers met at the White
House to discuss the fate of the company, which had been banned by the Commerce
Department from buying American products this year as punishment for violating
American sanctions. The administration has since lifted that ban at Mr. Trump’s
request and over the objections of lawmakers, who voted Monday to reinstate the
penalties on ZTE.
Even though his own Commerce Department had identified
ZTE's sanctions violations as serious, deliberate and serial, Mr. Trump ordered
the Department to water down the penalties, which would have put ZTE out of
business, after President Xi Jinping of China personally lobbied him to
reconsider.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Well. How 'bout them apples.
And here I'd been wondering how the U.S. got Russia and China to use their Security Council seats not to veto but to affirm tough sanctions against Iran and North Korea; thinking that the Obama and then Trump Administration's diplomats deserved congratulations.
I'll bet Putin and Xi feel they deserved more than that. And now that Trump has redefined (sc. abolished) the whole concept of government ethics, how can it be long before they start getting it? Lunch at Scarpetta, ambassadorial table-talk nobody else can quite overhear (without electronic assistance): "Really quite necessary, I am sorry to say. But mon cher, are you quite sure the provisions on aluminum are strict enough? Pass the butter, please."
No comments:
Post a Comment