China’s top negotiator Liu He finally talked to Bob Lighthizer and Steve Mnuchin. According to CNBC, Liu He agreed to come to Washington in early October to resume trade talks. The actual date of the meeting is still a mystery.
Mr. Trump wants another meeting. The stock market jumped to attention when the news broke. Trump’s plan to force China back to the trade table using additional tariffs seems to be working, according to White House officials. But China won’t sign a deal with Mr. Trump until he lifts the ban on Huawei, and the Canadians release Huawei’s CFO Meng Wanzhou from house arrest in Vancouver.
Trump’s ban on Huawei hurts U.S. tech companies. Mr. Trump claims banning Huawei hurts the second-largest smartphone maker in the world, but the company holds the number 11 on Fortune’s 500 list.
Huawei’s CEO Ren Zhengfei told the press his company is still a $100 billion company even though it will lose $10 billion in revenue from Trump’s ban. But the company did shut down its U.S. satellite company and 800 people lost their jobs due to the ban, according to Zhengfei. But the company plans to hire 1,000 people in Russia in order to build Putin’s 5G platform. More than 50 countries signed agreements with Huawei to build their 5G platforms.
Huawei will introduce its Mate 30 Pro smartphone in September with its new Harmony operating system in its DNA. According to several press reports, Huawei can’t use Google’s Android OS in the new Mate 30 Pro series, but the Android OS is still the operating system in other smartphone models.
Ren Zhengfei denied the allegations brought by a Portuguese multimedia producer Rui Oliveira. Rui claims Huawei infringed on his U.S. patent for smartphone cameras. Oliveira met with Huawei in 2014 to pitch his smartphone camera, but the company had its own camera ready for use, according to Zhengfei. Ren claims Oliveira’s camera has a single lens and it’s expandable, and Huawei’s camera has camera lenses on both sides, and it’s non-expandable. Huawei’s camera produces better panoramic pictures, according to Zhengfei.
U.S. prosecutors want the judge to remove Huawei’s attorney James M. Cole from Huawei’s defense team. The team will try to prove the company did not violate Iran sanctions. Cole is a former deputy attorney general. Prosecutors say he had access to classified information about another case that could impact the outcome of their case. The Huawei defense team told the judge Cole doesn’t remember the classified information prosecutors say he might use in this case.
