Donald Trump offered Meng’s release in trade talks with China, John Bolton says

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Donald Trump offered Meng’s release in trade talks with China, John Bolton says

 

OTTAWA – U.S. President Donald Trump tried to use the prosecution of Meng Wanzhou as a bargaining chip in trade talks with China, his former national security adviser says, but the decision to seek the Huawei executive’s arrest was not politically motivated.

 

In an interview Friday on CBC’s Radio’s “The Current,” John Bolton brushed aside suggestions his new book would help Meng by bolstering her claim that the prosecution against her was driven by politics.

 

“The facts are what the facts are, and I think when you read the book, it’s very clear what the purpose of the arrest was,” Bolton said. “It was not politically motivated at all, and I’d be happy to testify under oath to that effect in a Canadian court.”

 

Bolton said he and other advisers repeatedly told Trump the prosecution of Huawei, along with its high-profile chief financial officer Meng, was key to U.S. national security interests and protecting the integrity of its financial markets.

 

He said it wasn’t an anti-China move, “although I do think Huawei is effectively an arm of the Chinese state. This was something critical to our maintaining pressure on Iran and integrity in American financial markets.”

 

Despite all that, Trump raised the Meng case, not just publicly but in one-on-one talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping, and offered to drop the case against the Huawei executive as part of a broader trade deal, Bolton says in his new book, “The Room Where It Happened.”

 

Bolton writes that during a June 18, 2019 phone call, Xi “pressed hard on Huawei. Trump repeated his point that Huawei could be part of the trade deal, along with all of the other factors being discussed.

 

“Xi warned that, if not handled properly, Huawei would harm the overall bilateral relationship. In an amazing display of chutzpah, Xi described Huawei as an outstanding private Chinese company … and said he wanted to work jointly with Trump personally on the issue, and Trump seemed amenable.”

 

Bolton told CBC that “it was my view, and I think the uniform view of the president’s other advisers, that this kind of criminal prosecution should not be used as a bargaining chip in trade negotiations.

 

“What bothered me was the president’s tendency to get involved in criminal prosecutions to give effectively personal favours to dictators he was trying to improve his relationship with. And I just think that is a mistake.

 

“It calls into question the even-handedness of U.S. law enforcement and the seriousness with which we take violations in this case of the Iran sanctions and financial fraud.”

 

Bolton said Trump merely tolerated Prime Minister Justin Trudeau whom he personally dislikes, in order to get a NAFTA trade deal.

 

And he said Trump “gets along better with adversaries than with allies” because he has no “situational awareness” when it comes to international relations.

 

Bolton said Canada has been broadsided by China for upholding its “obligations” under a “long-standing” bilateral extradition treaty with the United States.

 

Two Canadian citizens, Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, were “arbitrarily arrested” in China just days after Meng was detained in Canada on an extradition request from the U.S., he said.

 

“I fully understand why the government of Canada and Canadians worry about their citizens getting caught up in what’s really a dispute between the United States and Huawei,” said Bolton.

 

“But please consider this. This is the way China behaves when it's not dominant in the world and if you don’t stand up to this kind of behaviour now, now what is it going to be like as China grows in economic strength?”

 

Bolton’s comments come at an explosive moment in Canada-China relations, after Kovrig and Spavor were charged last Friday with spying, a formal step that throws them into a Chinese judicial system that is opaque and widely seen as subject to political pressures.

 

While there have been informal diplomatic efforts to resolve the issue, as the Star reported, it has now publicly boiled over into a bitter dispute.

 

Trudeau declared this week he would not bow to the “political” pressure tactics of the Chinese government, which has now directly linked the demand for Meng’s release to the fate of the two men. Nor would he heed the advice of a group of former Canadian ministers, ambassadors and academics who want him to use his government’s legal power to let her go.

 

The star