In a tweet on Sunday U.S. President Donald Trump offered an olive branch to faltering Chinese firm ZTE Corp., Reuters reports this morning, pledging to help save jobs and get the telecoms equipment maker “back into business, fast” following its decision last week to cease core business operations.
“Too many jobs in China lost. Commerce Department has been instructed to get it done!” the tweet read. A spokeswoman for the White House later confirmed Trump’s statement that he was in talks with President Xi Jinping regarding ZTE’s future, proclaiming that the tweet was a demonstration of the importance of “free, fair, balanced and mutually beneficial” relations between the two countries.
ZTE was hit hard by recently-passed legislation that banned U.S. companies from doing business with it. The company was considered both a threat to national security and was being reprimanded for violating the terms of a deal with the U.S. that embargoed exports to Iran.