Spooked Republicans Scramble to Tie Trump's Hands on China Trade Talks
For months, Republicans have grumbled about President Trump’s posture on trade. This week, they did something about it.
ANDREW DESIDERIO
05.23.18 10:21 PM ET
When President Donald Trump tweeted earlier this month about his apparent desire to help a Chinese telecommunications firm that skirted U.S. sanctions, Republicans on Capitol Hill largely brushed it off, confident that the president’s advisers would set him straight.
But when it became clear this week that his top negotiators for trade talks with China were prepared to go that route, congressional Republicans scrambled. Within hours, they had joined Democrats not only in writing letters to Trump and his cabinet officials—but also supporting, en masse, a legislative vehicle that wrests power away from the executive branch.
GOP lawmakers have grown visibly frustrated with the Trump administration amid high-stakes trade talks with Beijing—and they’re openly fearing that the negotiators will, against the advice of top intelligence officials, provide relief to China-based ZTE in order to reduce the trade deficit between the two countries.
“There’s just concerns about mixing national security with other things that don’t have to do with it,” Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN), a senior member of the Senate Banking Committee, said in an interview. “Then there’s the concerns about how the whole trade thing is being handled, period.”
Democrats and Republicans were alarmed when Trump tweeted earlier this month about his desire to save Chinese jobs by giving ZTE—the Chinese telecommunications giant that has evaded U.S. sanctions against North Korea and Iran, and which intelligence officials say poses national security risks to the U.S.—“a way to get back into business, fast.”
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https://www.thedailybeast.com/spooked-republicans-scramble-to-tie-trumps-hands-on-china-trade-talks
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