President Trump To Use Huawei CFO As a Bargaining Chip (politico.com)

hackingbear shares a report from Politico, adding: "This fuels the suspicion that the Chinese executive is held as a hostage for the ongoing trade negotiation with China." From the report: President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he reserved the right to weigh in on the Justice Department's case against the CFO of Huawei, if it would help him close a trade deal with Beijing or would serve other American national security interests. "If I think it's good for what will be certainly the largest trade deal ever made -- which is a very important thing -- what's good for national security -- I would certainly intervene if I thought it was necessary," Trump told Reuters. Trump added that President Xi Jinping of China had not called him about the case, but that the White House had been in touch with both the Justice Department and Chinese officials. Huawei's CFO, Meng Wanzhou, was arrested in Canada earlier this month at the request of American authorities, who allege that she violated U.S. sanctions against Iran. Yesterday, a Vancouver judge ruled that Meng would be released on a $7.5 million bail if she remains in British Columbia.

Comments

Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

That seems like a pretty unhealthy precedent to set.

Re:Hmmm

[ShanghaiBill]

That seems like a pretty unhealthy precedent to set.

Quite so. I believe she is still in Canada. If Canada has any backbone at all, they should refuse to extradite in the wake of these extrajudicial threats.

Re:Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

The warrant and arrest was legitimate. If the Canadian court rules she can be extradited (something outside the US's control) and she makes it to trial in the US, it will be real courts based on real law. The President cannot convene a kangaroo court in the US. What I read Trump's comments to mean, is that if it's beneficial to trade negotiations, he'd be willing to have the Justice Department rescind the charges or to offer a lenient plea. This would likely come with a commitment to stop dealing sanctioned items with Iran.

He's not holding her hostage. He likely had nothing at all to do with the ongoing investigation which is fairly serious. It's her and her father's company that put her in this situation. She knew of the issue and had been avoiding the US for several months despite having a son in school and business interests. This did not come out of thin air for the sake of negotiating.

Re:Hmmm

[fahrbot-bot]

That seems like a pretty unhealthy precedent to set.

Especially odd considering Trumps penchant for thinking things through and considering all the options and future consequences of his thoughts and actions. Quite off his game, I'd say. Perhaps he's distracted. Then again, I don't play 4D chess and can't perhaps see the lack of downsides to this going forward.

Re: Hmmm

[c6gunner]

If he understood power politics he would have never made this announcement. He may have just thrown away any chance that Canada will actually agree to extradite her. This is incompetence politics.

Re:Hmmm

[Desler]

This is a joke, right? Nothing good for anyone is gonna come out of this. Why would China not just start trumping up charges to arrest Americans? As soon as they did that, the toddler would back down like the wimpy weenie he is.

Re:Hmmm

[Desler]

Except they won't. They'd likely just incorporate overseas.

Re:Hmmm

[Desler]

Except Trump is overplaying his hand just like with Kim. China isn't gonna blink, they'll just escalate. The PRC isn't quaking in their boots since they'll be in power long past when this toddler leaves office.

Re:Hmmm

[jrumney]

The return to power politics is right up there with "clean coal" when it comes to outdated ideas that have no business being revived in the 21st century.

Re: Hmmm

[Freischutz]

If he understood power politics he would have never made this announcement. He may have just thrown away any chance that Canada will actually agree to extradite her. This is incompetence politics.

Nah, this is straight out of the N-Korean playbook, take hostages and use them as bargaining chips to extract concessions. Kind of a new low for the US though.

Re: Hmmm

[Mistlefoot]

US policy on Extraditing people.

"The political incidence test looks to whether the offence is "part of and incidental to a political struggle". Initially, it did not concern itself with the motives of the offender" from Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_offence_exception

When the Trump said what he said he basically implied that this was part and incidental to a political struggle. I agree with OP, and bet her Lawyer's will enjoy his words.

Re:Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Quite so. I believe she is still in Canada. If Canada has any backbone at all, they should refuse to extradite in the wake of these extrajudicial threats.

Indeed.

Canada acted in good faith in accordance with international law. Canada's politicians do not have the ability to tell the legal system what to do, because it's independent.

If Canada has been played in Trump's pissing contest with China ... and certainly Trump is suggesting he'd exert influence over the US legal system to get his way .. then I agree with this entirely, and hopefully the judiciary deems that since the US didn't act in good faith we consider the matter dropped.

This is no different from Russian sending out INTERPOL red notices to suppress dissent.

Trump seems to be literally suggesting he'd actively pressure the department of justice to either stage this, or to drop charges.

This is some scary shit, and if this is the kind of ally the US is, then I will likely never go there again. The US is on a path of becoming a very scary and dangerous nation in terms of what it is willing to do with its friends to prove a point.

Fuck you, America.

Re:Hmmm

[hey!]

I think it depends.

If there is probable cause to arrest her and a reasonable chance of a successful prosecution, we are technically in our rights to ask Canada to extradite this person. And then if China offers a deal to get her back, it wouldn't be that unusual to let her return. We do that with spies all the time. With other types of convicted criminals sometimes the home country agrees to detains them for the rest of their American sentence, but that's not strictly necessary.

But to publicly announce that you are using somebody held in custody as a bargaining chip is astonishingly stupid. There is nothing to be gained by saying that, and the instant you do everyone starts operating off the assumption that this was a political arrest. This not only puts you at a disadvantage, you really encourage the other country to collect bargaining chips of their own.

This man is catastrophically incompetent. To be fair, political posturing is a big part of being president, and he's actually pretty good at that. But no amount of bullshitting brilliance can do the whole job for you.

Re: Hmmm

[quantaman]

"The political incidence test looks to whether the offence is "part of and incidental to a political struggle".

She is not part to a political struggle — she is not even a US citizen. She may be part of a trade-war between countries, but that's not political at all.

How is a trade war not political?

When the [sic] Trump said what he said he basically implied that this was part and incidental to a political struggle

He said nothing of the kind. The media's disease of putting words into Trump's mouth has, evidently, infected their best customers...

Damn fake news at it again! Putting words in Trump's mouth by printing them verbatim!!

He said, he might allow her to go, if China cooperates — the charges are perfectly real and not political.

The arrest didn't seem to be political, but now she's in custody Trump is talking about using the charges for political gain.

On the one hand that could mean "we got a deal, drop all charges!!"

But it could also mean "I don't care if the case is falling apart, I need the leverage! Keep her in custody!!"

Hence the reason why a Canadian Judge, even if they think the charges are legitimate, could refuse the extradition request on the grounds she won't be subjected to a fair legal process.

Re:Hmmm

[Kernel Kurtz]

The President cannot convene a kangaroo court in the US.

That is what Guantanamo is for.....

Re:Hmmm

[l0ungeb0y]

As an American, I see no reason to be offended by people making statements of fact. And as an American, you should be offended that we have such an embarrassment in office who has forever diminished the stature of the US and it's image across the world and done so much harm by alienating us fro our allies wile cozying up to anti-democratic despots for the sake of profits for the Trump family

Re: Hmmm

[c6gunner]

Which charges would those be? The charge of a Chinese citizen in China not complying with a unilateral declaration of "sanctions" by the USA which isn't even recognized by the UN? That's not a charge, it's a farce and a pretext. US law stops 12 miles offshore. Chinese citizens can do whatever they want under Chinese law while in China.

Your UID tells me you're probably senile, so I'll try to be gentle:

1. The UN doesn't need to recognize US law. As a general rule, the UN does not get involved with the laws of ANY country, though they will occasionally criticise ones which infringe on basic human rights.

2. You have no clue if her crime was commited while she was in China; you're just assuming it. This may be a revelation to you, but Chinese people do actually leave China once in a while. They even travel to the USA now and then.

3. Even if she had never left China, that doesn't mean she couldn't have broken a US law. Canada exports a lot of Canola to China. If I were to contaminate one of those shipments with ricin, I would very much be breaking Chinese law. If I were to then travel to (or through) a country which has an extradition treaty with China, the Chinese would be fully within their rights to demand that I be extradited on the charge of murder.

I can't wait for Saudis to start grabbing American tourists for extradition from Dubai for consuming alcohol, fornication and blasphemy while in the US.

The Saudis do not have laws against US citizens consuming alcohol while in the US. If they did then yes, they absolutely could do that; and the US would advize it's citizens not to travel to Saudi Arabia.

Re: Hmmm

[Nidi62]

They came up with the "enemy combatant" term to specifically get around the Geneva convention.

Ah... Where will this end?

[PuddleBoy]

This seems like a dangerous/crazy step to take. How does this type of negotiation tactic end? (ie - has someone thought out the likely reactions and steps the Other Side is likely to take?) What's to stop other countries from following suit?

Traditional diplomacy rested on a sort of 'gentleman's agreement'. While some of that diplomacy took forever and yielded less than we wished, at least (on the surface) it was civilized and seemed to prevent harm. Our current course could get unpleasant quickly.

Or am I just overthinking this?

Re:Ah... Where will this end?

[Desler]

Right, because China only arrests people who have committed crimes? They've never capriciously jailed and executed people without even needing a reason. Nope, not once.

Re:Ah... Where will this end?

[Streetlight]

Exactly my thoughts expressed in another /. thread. How many Americans in China on business that will be detained will it take to free the woman should she be extradited to the US?

The Justice Dept has already said no

[rsilvergun]

they do not use people as bargaining chips, which is hilarious since Trump as chief Executive is the head of the Justice Dept (yeah, yeah, I know it's "non-partisan", tell me another one and say hi to the Attorney General he fired for not playing ball). The real damage Trump has done was to the rule of law in America.

Thing is, his poll numbers haven't budge an inch (according to 538, which is usually right). He's a true Demagogue. Nothing he does or says makes his base second guess him. The GOP is even trying to get him to go after Social Security and Medicare, with the assumption being that he could do it without taking any damage politically. And you know what? I think they're right. Fortunately he's said no (so far).

Re: The Justice Dept has already said no

[c6gunner]

There is precedent (loads of it) for exchange prisoners during a war, since the laws in play are completely different. There's also some precedent for exchanging captured spies for other captured spies, which is again a rather unique situation. There is zero precedent for releasing prisoners convicted of any type of crimes in exchange for trade agreements. If you start doing that you may as well admit that your laws mean nothing.

Re: The Justice Dept has already said no

[h33t l4x0r]

I say we trade her to Equador for Assange and a left-handed reliever.

His base claims to love the rule of law

[rsilvergun]

their poll numbers say otherwise. Can you just imagine the shit storm if Obama pulled this crap? Take everything Trump's done for the last 2 years, put it down on paper, CTL-R / Trump / Obama and run a poll and see what kind of numbers you get.

My point is his base has stopped thinking and they're just feeling. Trump feels _good_. He tells them what they want to hear. He gives them simple answers to complex problems. It's classic demagoguery just like Stalin, Hitler, Mao and Mussolini did. Trump's not violent like them, he just like attention. So he'll fade into the background when his time's up.

Trump's paving the way for a real dictator. We, and most definately Trump's base (who've been crying about FEMA death camps since Obama got elected) should be freaking the heck out about that. Trouble is they mostly get their media from propaganda outfits (Fox News, Alex Jones, and now even NRA TV, go watch it, it's creepy as hell). So they can't see the very thing they fear most creeping up on them...

What a mess

[dskoll]

Canada should absolutely determine that the US extradition request was made in bad faith. Except... Now the Chinese have gone and disappeared a couple of Canadian citizens, which means we'll look like chumps if we give in to China. Thanks for involving us in your stupid pissing match, US and China.

Re:The rest of the story you did not hear

[theycallmeB]

Well if he was actually pissed about this he could simply issue a pardon for the alleged crimes. Case over, "Deep State" thoroughly thwarted, tensions eased and good karma points earned with China. The use of Presidential pardons to counter over-zealous prosecution is emphatically one of the use cases in mind when the pardon power was written.

But, no, he publicly muses about using the arrest of Ms. Meng as a bargaining chip to extract a better deal from the Chinese government. That dramatically increases the chance that extradition will be denied, since political overtones were just dropped all over the case, while burning any good will there may have been from the trade truce.

It really isn't normal to forewarn the President about individual arrests in ordinary cases. If this had simply been left to career staff to make a legitimate case the Chinese government would have scowled some and then filed it as precedent for later use when the shoe is on the other foot. But it was very much the President's choice to make Iran related issues a priority for the Justice Department, as is his rightful prerogative, and also his choice to make this case a political football. So if he is in fact pissed about this, some of that ire needs to land on the man in the mirror.