The Washington Post reports: "The Chinese government demanded the immediate release of Meng Wanzhou, Huawei Technologies’ chief financial officer and the daughter of the company’s founder, after she was arrested changing planes in Vancouver, B.C., on Saturday."
The Trump administration denied knowing about the upcoming arrest, but then John Bolton, Trump's NSA admitted he did know before the dinner with President Xi.
The White House says Trump and his close aides were not aware the US planned to place an extradition request for Meng ahead of his dinner with Xi on Saturday. National security adviser John Bolton said in an interview with National Public Radio that he was aware before the dinner that an arrest was coming.
Bolton, always the hawk, blew Trumps' cover.
On Varney & Co., the panel refused to believe that the Trump administration had no idea Meng Wanzhou of Huawei Technologies was going to be arrested.
The arrest took place while they were negotiating with China on trade. Trump's tweets on trade this week have had large negative repercussions in the stock markets.
Varney repeated the Trump administration's denials that while they were sitting down to dinner with China's president, "they didn't know, they say" an arrest was coming.
Varney asked, "Is this trade fight still a factor in the markets?"
A panel member replied, "Absolutely. no one is going to believe that, I mean even if it's true no one's going to believe that -- "
"It is true by the way," Varney piped in. He's always ready to back up Trump.
He scoffed, "Ahhh, that's what they say. Come on, China is not going to believe that. The last time they had a meeting with Pres. Xi in Mar-A-Lago they bombed Syria. This time they are in a meeting with him and they arrest the founder of Huawei's daughter. They're not going to believe this. The timing is terrible and I think it's terrible also for the trade negotiations."
Susan Li equated the Chinese tech company with Dell and Microsoft and called them a state champion for China.
Varney remarked, "And China does think this is linked to the trade talks. 'You're picking on us.'"
Li said, "Yea, that's right. they do see this going back to the trade dispute."
David Dietze replied, "It's not helpful to trade negotiations, no question about it. Hopefully, China doesn't allow this to escalate, tit for tat - [by arresting] US executives over in China.
At this moment in time as I write this (9:34 am PST Friday) the DJIA is down 439 points.
Way to go, team Trump.
