The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir

by John Bolton

Trump made matters worse on several occasions by implying that Huawei also could be simply another US bargaining chip in the trade negotiations, ignoring both the significance of the criminal case and also the far larger threat Huawei posed to the security of fifth-generation (or 5G) telecom systems worldwide. This is what the black-hole-of-trade phenomenon did in twisting all other issues around Trump’s fascination with a big trade deal. Huawei posed enormous national-security issues, many of which we could only allude to in public statements. The idea that this was merely trade bait both discouraged and confused our friends. Mnuchin fretted constantly about how this or that prosecution for hacking or other cybercrimes would have a negative effect on the trade negotiations, which Trump sometimes bought and sometimes didn’t. At one point, he said to Mnuchin, “Steve, the Chinese see fear in your eyes. That’s why I don’t want you negotiating with them.” Those were the good days. There were more that weren’t.