Only I can fix it · First term · № 24
Nobody else could have gotten China to approve Qualcomm's merger
“I called up President Xi, and I—they rejected it. Remember? And then, they accepted it. By that time, you were off to another deal. You didn't even want it. But nobody else could have done that, right?”
- Said
- , Signing of the U.S.-China Phase One trade agreement, East Room of the White House
- Subject
- Qualcomm's NXP merger approval
- Topic
- Trade & tariffs
- Era
- First term
What happened
Qualcomm announced its $44 billion bid for NXP Semiconductors on October 27, 2016. The deal required approval from China's Ministry of Commerce, which never came, and Qualcomm cancelled the acquisition on July 26, 2018. There is no public record of a later Chinese approval; Trump was addressing Qualcomm CEO Steve Mollenkopf in the audience when he made the claim.