Trump's best friend in Beijing

Trump is nothing if not contrary. There he was, not that long ago, ranting on about the unfair trade imbalance with China, vowing to put America first and slapping tarrifs on Chinese imports. Then he gets a phone call from his friend in Beijing, the smiley (sort of) Xi Zinping who asks him if he could save China's biggest telecommunications company, ZTE, which has been running into huge trouble ever since the US penalised them for trading with North Korea and Iran in breach of international sanctions. President Xi apparently warned Trump that this company was going to go out of business, making vulnerable 80,000 jobs. A very clever ploy by Xi. I'm sure the threat to the jobs is partly true but this was clearly Xi testing Trump's vow of friendship. "You help me over this and maybe we can soften the trade imbalance row." Trump's reaction was instant, like always. "Of course, my friend, jobs are so important. I don't want to put all these nice Chinese people out of a job. Let's get it sorted." The US Commerce Department was duly told to get it sorted. No wonder newspaper reports in Washington recorded a lot of scratching of heads. You can imagine the Commerce Secretary saying: "But I thought we were supposed to be blacklisting ZTE?!" But it's all quite clever of businessman Trump. He can see the merits of being nice and friendly with Xi, to make sure the threatened trade war with China doesn't happen. Xi will now be under pressure to do a deal. It's amazing what relationships can do. Trump goes on about how he enjoys having Xi as his friend. Never mind whether Xi actually likes Trump or not, the Chinese president sees the virtue in being friends with this particular American leader. The US does a volte-face over ZTE but all in the name of settling trade relations with Beijing for the long term. But a word of warning. There's still all that trouble over China's military expansion in the South China Sea and the deployment of missiles on the islands that once were known for their coral and now are heaving with concrete. Trump will have to think of a way of sorting that one out to prevent any military confrontation with his friend in Beijing.