A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers has written to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to register alarm over the prospect of Huawei or other Chinese state-directed companies being included in the development of Canada’s 5G network. | Johannes Eisele/AFP/Getty Images Trade Bolton: White House knew about Huawei arrest

White House officials knew Canada was about to arrest a top executive of the Chinese telecom giant Huawei even as President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping met over dinner last weekend in Argentina, National Security Adviser John Bolton told NPR Thursday.

Sabrina Meng, vice chairman and chief financial officer of Huawei was detained by Canadian authorities in Vancouver on Saturday, but the news didn’t become public until Wednesday night.


Markets dropped Thursday as the news cast fresh doubts on the U.S. and China’s ability to work out the trade dispute that has for months threatened both economies.

Bolton told NPR he learned of the forthcoming arrest as part of a routine Justice Department briefing. An administration official told POLITICO that Trump and most of the other senior aides at the dinner with Xi in Buenos Aires knew about the extradition request until after the dinner.

The Chinese government on Thursday demanded answers as Meng remained in detention in Canada, facing extradition to the U.S.

POLITICO Playbook newsletter Sign up today to receive the #1-rated newsletter in politics Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Meng, whose Chinese name is Meng Wanzhou, faces an investigation into whether she has run afoul of U.S. trade sanctions against Iran, The Globe and Mail reported Thursday. The investigation is reportedly being handled by prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney’s office in the Eastern District of New York. A spokesperson for that office declined to comment to POLITICO.

It also comes as part of a broader U.S. investigation into whether Huawei was using the global banking system to circumvent U.S. sanctions against Iran, Reuters reported Thursday, citing sources familiar with the situation.

A bail hearing for Meng is set for Friday, said Ian McLeod, a spokesman for Canada’s Department of Justice.

“As there is a publication ban in effect, we cannot provide any further detail at this time,” McLeod said in a statement. “The ban was sought by Ms. Meng.”

U.S. concerns about security risks posed by Chinese technology companies are one of the central points of tension between the two countries and were a primary focus of discussions Saturday during the dinner meeting among members of Xi and Trump’s teams.

Huawei is an influential company in China, making network gear and smartphones that it sells worldwide. Bolton noted Thursday that Huawei “is one company we’ve been concerned about” regarding its history of what the White House sees as forced technology transfers and the theft of intellectual property.

Allegations that Huawei poses a cybersecurity risk spurred Congress to pass legislation this summer banning the U.S. government from procuring equipment or services from the company, as well as from another Chinese telecommunications firm, ZTE.

The fiscal 2019 National Defense Authorization Act passed in September includes a governmentwide ban on procuring equipment and services from Huawei and ZTE, as well as several other telecommunications firms with ties to the Chinese government.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers from the Senate Intelligence Committee has also written to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to register alarm over the prospect of Huawei or other Chinese state-directed companies being included in the development of Canada’s 5G network.

Over the past few days, few details have emerged about Saturday’s trade talks. China has agreed to resume imports of U.S. agriculture and energy goods, and the U.S. has suspended an escalation of tariffs. U.S. officials have also said Beijing will immediately address issues related to the Trump administration’s complaints over forced technology transfer and other practices they say are aimed at U.S. companies, but China has not confirmed if or when it will make those changes.

However, China has put out positive statements on the talks even after Meng was arrested on Dec. 1. In a statement on Wednesday, China’s Ministry of Commerce called the meeting between the president “very successful.”

“China and the U.S. should follow the consensus reached by the two heads of state to step up consultations and reach a mutually beneficial agreement at an early date,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said during a news conference on Thursday.

Beijing said Thursday that the U.S. and Canadian authorities had yet to clarify their reason for arresting Meng. Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng said Beijing is asking the U.S and Canada to release her.

“Detaining the person involved with no explicit reason certainly harms her human rights,” Geng said. “In addition, like I said just now, neither the U.S. nor Canada has made any clarification on the reason for the detention so far.”

The detainment of a prominent executive at a prominent company could be viewed in China as a direct attack.

“Clearly, it will make the relationship worse,” said Bill Reinsch, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Their tendency is to assume anytime something like this happens that there are implications for the relationship — that it was done deliberately and that the whole thing is extralegal and it’s part of U.S. policy.”

The U.S. has asked for Meng’s transfer, and in Canada, these cases are considered virtually automatic: The Canadian government systematically approves American extradition requests, with few exceptions — such as the possibility the accused might face the death penalty in the U.S.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters on Thursday that he was given advance notice of the arrest but did not intervene and has not discussed the issue with the Chinese.

Sabrina Meng reportedly faces an investigation into whether she has run afoul of U.S. trade sanctions against Iran. | Huawei

Members of Congress began praising the arrest on Wednesday and Thursday. Sen.Ted Cruz (R-Texas), for one, criticized Huawei as “a Communist Party spy agency thinly veiled as a telecom company.”

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), who serves as vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said it’s clear that Huawei and ZTE are a threat to national security.

“Now we know that Huawei, like ZTE, has violated U.S. sanctions law,” he said in a statement. “It’s my hope that the Trump Administration will hold Huawei fully accountable for breaking sanctions law, as it failed to do in the case of ZTE.”

Asked whether he was worried about Chinese retaliation, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) emphasized that the incident was purely a law enforcement matter and not a political one. “Someone breaks the law, you can’t say, ‘We’re not going to arrest him, we’re not going to prosecute them because they happen to work for a company linked to a very powerful nation,’” he told POLITICO. “‘It’s as simple as that.”

Meng is also the daughter of Huawei’s founder and CEO, Ren Zhengfei. Some mainland China media have identified Meng as a leading contender to succeed her father, the South China Morning Post reported.

Shortly before he was ousted, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions had announced a crackdown to combat Chinese economic espionage to identify Chinese trade theft cases that are a priority for the administration. He said he would ensure the department has enough resources to investigate them and bring them an to appropriate conclusion quickly and effectively.

Amanda Eisenberg contributed to this report from New York; Adam Behsudi, Andrew Restuccia and Martin Matishak contributed from Washington; and Alex Panetta contributed from Montreal.