Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros has called US President Donald Trump's approach towards China his "greatest and perhaps only accomplishment" in the country's foreign policy in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal. Soros specifically expressed support for the decision to add Chinese tech giant Huawei to a so-called entity list, effectively limiting the ability of US firms to work with it.
But the billionaire's praise of Trump, a rare thing in itself, did not last long, as he suggests that the positive effects of the president's foreign policy could ultimately be in vain and that it will be Trump's own doing. Soros expressed fear that seeking to secure a trade deal with Chinese President Xi Jinping in order to boost re-election chances in 2020, Trump will use Huawei's "delisting" as a bargaining chip.
In this light, Soros called on US lawmakers to adopt a bill to limit Trump's ability to take Huawei off the entity list and use this leverage to keep the Chinese company on it regardless of trade talks. The billionaire admitted that by doing so he does not care about US national interests, insisting that delivering a blow to Beijing's social-credit system is a far more important result.
Soros has long criticised Trump and his policies, especially in regard to migration, as the former Hungarian is a proponent of open borders. Various reports suggest that the billionaire has spent some of his fortune to support Trump's many opponents and there are allegations he indirectly funded the creation of the Steele Dossier.
Huawei's telecom production was effectively banned from the US market in 2019 and American firms were restricted from selling the company "sensitive" technologies.