Donald Trump has suggested that Huawei could be used as a bargaining chip in its ongoing tariff trade war with China.
The US president made the comments during a press conference about the stalled negotiations. Although the conference was about farming rather than technology, one reporter asked about the embattled Chinese telecoms giant.
"Huawei is something that's very dangerous," Trump told reporters at the White House. "You look at what they've done from a security standpoint, from a military standpoint, it's very dangerous. So it's possible that Huawei even would be included in some kind of a trade deal. If we made a deal, I could imagine Huawei being possibly included in some form, some part of a trade deal."
Trump was asked how would that look and commented: "It would look very good for us." He was then pressed on how he would "design that" but again stopped short of offering any specifics.
"Oh, it's too early to say," he said. "We're just very concerned about Huawei from a security standpoint."
This "concern" has already resulted in an executive order that was signed by Trump just over a week ago which banned all US firms from striking telecoms deals with companies deemed to be a risk to national security. It was reportedly aimed at Huawei, which was placed on a trade blacklist by the US Department of Commerce.
The allegations against Huawei stem from its alleged ties to the Chinese military and the Chinese communist party through its founder Ren Zengheif. While the US hasn't offered much in the way of evidence, Huawei has seen suppliers such as Google and ARM shun the company due to the executive order.
How the company fits into the ongoing trade tariff with China is unclear, as the president didn't specify, leaving it open to speculation. A spokesman for China's ministry of foreign affairs, Gao Feng, said the US needed to "show its sincerity".
"Recently the United States os frequently using 'long-arm jurisdiction' to suppress Chinese enterprise," he said according to the BBC. "China urges the US to stop the wrongdoings to avoid further impact on the China-US trade relations."
"If the US would like to continue to talk, it should show its sincerity and correct its wrong actions."
