National Security Advisor John Bolton speaks to reporters as he announces that the U.S. will pull out of a treaty with Iran during a news conference in the White House briefing room in Washington, October 3, 2018. Jonathan Ernst | Reuters

National security advisor John Bolton said Thursday "I knew in advance" that giant smartphone maker Huawei's global CFO Meng Wanzhou would be arrested in Vancouver, Canada, at the behest of U.S. authorities — but President Donald Trump reportedly was in the dark about the planned bust. Bolton also said in an interview with National Public Radio set to air later Thursday that Huawei is a company that American officials have been concerned about for various reasons. Bolton would not give details of the crime or crimes that U.S. federal prosecutors are alleging against Meng, the 46-year-old daughter of Huawei's founder, Ren Zhengfei, according to a transcript of the interview released by NPR.

"I'd rather not get into the specifics of law enforcement matters," said Bolton, who declined to answer whether the arrest was related to sanctions against Iran, as others claimed Thursday. "But we've had enormous concerns for years about the — in this country — about the practice of Chinese firms to use stolen American intellectual property, to engage in forced technology transfers, and to be used as arms of the Chinese government's objectives in terms of information technology in particular," he said. "So not respecting this particular arrest, but Huawei is one company we've been concerned about," he said. "There are others as well. I think this is going to be a major subject of the negotiations that President Trump and President Xi Jinping agreed to in Buenos Aires." In April, the Pentagon stopped selling phones and modems made by Huawei and another company, ZTE, at stores on U.S. military bases because of possible security risks from the devices. Meng was arrested Saturday, the same day that Trump and Bolton dined with China's leader Xi at the G-20 summit in Buenos Aires.

Asked if Trump knew in advance that Meng's arrest was going to occur, Bolton said, "I don't know the answer to that." The Reuters news agency reported later Thursday, citing a White House official, that Trump had been unaware of the planned arrest at the time of that dinner. "I knew in advance. This is something that we get from the Justice Department," Bolton said. "And these kinds of things happen with some frequency. We certainly don't inform the president on every one of them." When it was pointed out by NPR reporter Steve Inskeep that he would have known during the dinner with Xi that "this arrest was taking place," Bolton replied, "Well, you know there are a lot of things that are pending at any given time." "You don't know exactly what's going to happen in terms of a particular law enforcement action," Bolton said. "That depends on a lot of other circumstances."