Eli Lake, Columnist

Trump Hasn’t Surrendered on Huawei — Yet

Unfortunately, the president’s history of negotiations with U.S. rivals does not inspire confidence.

July 1, 2019 at 10:00 PM UTC

Eli Lake is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering national security and foreign policy. He was the senior national security correspondent for the Daily Beast and covered national security and intelligence for the Washington Times, the New York Sun and UPI.

Still a danger.
Photographer: FRED DUFOUR/AFP

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For a few hours after U.S. President Donald Trump’s meeting last week with Chinese President Xi Jinping, it looked like America’s policy on Huawei had collapsed.

After that meeting, Trump announced that he would allow U.S. tech companies to export less sensitive equipment to the Chinese telecom giant that his government has been warning allies not to use in their 5G wireless networks. As my colleague Tim Culpan correctly noted, this undermines the U.S. position on Huawei, making it look like a pawn in a wider trade negotiation. Trump is now saying he will leave the thorny question of Huawei till the end of negotiations, suggesting that a crucial matter of national security is negotiable, like export limits on soybeans or aluminum.