President Trump, upon taking office, delighted in rejecting received wisdom on trade and diplomacy. For today’s lesson, we begin the President’s controversial reversal of policy toward China’s ZTE Corporation. No, President Trump was determined to take ownership. The Commerce Department, under President Obama, had found that ZTE violated U.S. embargoes when it sold telecom equipment containing U.S. parts to Iran, Sudan, North Korea, Syria, and Cuba. Now U.S. sanctions policy enforcement may be traded off against pork market access or against economically meaningless manipulation of the bilateral trade numbers.

Source: Forbes May 16, 2018 09:56 UTC