To Matt Pottinger, however, Trump’s reversal mattered less than the lesson taught by the strike on ZTE: Washington could exploit technology as a chokepoint, much like it did with the U.S. dollar. In fact, American technology was so essential that cutting off access to it—a measure that Pottinger had already recommended in his strategy paper—could send a major Chinese tech company into a death spiral. As new instances of Chinese economic malfeasance came to light in the months ahead, Pottinger and his colleagues would keep that lesson in mind.
