Back in May, as in just a few short weeks ago, the Trump administration placed Chinese telecom giant Huawei on a trade blacklist following the unsealing of a Justice Department indictment that said the company had conspired to provide forbidden financial services to Iran, and concluded that it was “engaged in activities that are contrary to U.S. national security or foreign policy interest.” Placement on the Commerce Department’s “entity list” meant that U.S. businesses were largely banned from selling parts and components to Huawei and, as you can probably gather, was a pretty big deal. So big, in fact, that you wouldn’t expect the president to basically take it all back just over a month later, particularly if he was getting little in return for giving an apparent national-security risk a reprieve. But, surprise!

On Saturday Donald Trump told the press that he’d decided to let U.S. companies sell to Huawei, despite literally putting Huawei on the trade blacklist in May, adding in a follow-up tweet that he’d done so at the behest of “High Tech companies” and Chinese president Xi Jinping, who’d both been lobbying hard for him to reverse course. The announcement was made in the context of the two sides resuming trade talks, and Trump agreeing to suspend imposing an additional $300 billion worth of tariffs that he’s been threatening for weeks.

While companies, lawmakers, and investors alike have been begging Trump to resolve his dispute with Beijing, the latest move isn’t exactly what many had in mind, outside of the Silicon Valley firms for whom it‘s likely to be viewed as a personal win. Senator Marco Rubio tweeted that loosening the restrictions put on Huawei would be a “catastrophic mistake” that “will destroy the credibility of his administration’s warnings about the threat posed by the company [and] no one will ever again take them seriously.” He added: “If President Trump has in fact bargained away the recent restrictions on #Huawei, then we will have to get those restrictions put back in place through legislation.” The move was also a slap in the face to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who has warned U.S. allies that Huawei is “a profoundly dangerous security threat” and encouraged them to blacklist it themselves.

In a statement, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer noted that the announcement was yet another indication that the dealmaker in chief actually sucks at dealmaking. “Huawei is one of few potent levers we have to make China play fair on trade,” Schumer said. “If President Trump backs off, as it appears he is doing, it will dramatically undercut our ability to change China’s unfair trades practices.” Wendy Cutler, a veteran U.S. trade negotiator, told Bloomberg: “This is a big concession to China. And it is unclear what the U.S. got in return.”

Meanwhile, the White House has naturally claimed that lawmakers are making a fuss about nothing. On Sunday, National Economic Council director Larry Kudlow attempted to downplay the significance of the whole thing, telling Fox News’s Chris Wallace, “The president is not backing off on the national-security concerns—we understand the huge risks regarding Huawei,” adding that the loosening of restrictions only applies to “general merchandise…various chips and software and other services that are available all around the world, not specific to the U.S.”