Possibility of including Huawei in trade deal with China: Trump

Washington: There is a possibility of including Huawei in the ongoing trade deal with China, US President Donald Trump has said, days after signing an executive order that effectively barred the Chinese telecom giant from the American market.

Shenzhen-headquartered Huawei, a rapidly expanding leader in 5G technology, buys about USD 67 billion worth of components each year, including about USD 11 billion from the US suppliers, according to estimates.

The world's two largest economies are locked in a trade war since Trump imposed heavy tariffs on imported steel and aluminium items from China in March last year. In response, China imposed tit-for-tat tariffs on billions of dollars worth of American imports.

Escalating the trade tension, Trump signed an executive order on May 15 barring American companies from installing the foreign-made telecom equipment posing a national security threat, a move apparently aimed at banning Huawei from US networks.

"There's a possibility (of including Huawei in the trade deal). I think probably a good possibility," Trump told reporters at the White House responding to a question on the status of negotiations with China and Huawei.

The United States is "very concerned" about Huawei from a security standpoint, he said.

"I don't know how China can do this because I'll be honest, we are getting hundreds of millions of dollars brought into our country. We've never gotten USD 0.10. We are getting hundreds of billions of dollars coming into our country," he said.

On Thursday, Trump announced that he has directed his Agriculture Secretary to provide USD 16 billion in assistance to America's farmers and ranchers.

"It all comes from China," he said.

"We will be taking in, over a period of time, hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs and charges to China and our farmers will be greatly helped. We want to get them back to the point where they would have had if they had a good year. This support for farmers will be paid for by the billions of dollars our treasury takes in," he said.

Months of negotiations on a trade deal broke recently after China, the US alleged, went back on its commitment.

"Not so long ago during the time of our negotiation and China broke the deal with us... That's fine but during that time of negotiation if everyone remembers we had periods where China would target our farms, right They would actually target.

"They took an ad in a newspaper from Iowa, a big ad, said lots of bad things about the administration, about the fact that we are negotiating to tough, we are not going to make a deal. But they steal intellectual property by the billions. Somebody estimated it at USD 300 billion," he alleged.

Trump said he cannot let that happen.

The US economy is booming, the country is prospering and now is the time to insist on fair and reciprocal trade for US workers and farmers, he said.

At the same time, he remained hopeful that the trade deal with China could happen soon.

"If it happens, great. If it doesn't happen that's fine. That's absolutely fine. And I look forward -- I will be seeing President Xi at the G20 very shortly," he said.

"In the meantime and may be for a long time I appreciate the incredible bipartisan support that my administration has had on trade and trade policy especially as it pertains to placing very massive tariffs on China," he said adding that these tariffs are paid for largely by China.

"China subsidises a lot of businesses and China came out and in subsidising the business they pay for a big portion of that tax. But right now a lot of companies are moving out of China because of the tax. They are moving to nontariff countries. So it's a bad thing for China. We don't want that but that's just the way it works out," Trump said.

Trump has been demanding that China reduce the massive trade deficit which last year climbed to over USD 539 billion. He is also pressing for verifiable measures for protection of intellectual property rights (IPR), technology transfer and more access to American goods to Chinese markets.