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King: Arrest Of Chinese Tech Giant's CFO Strains US-China Relations

Andrew Harnik
/
Associated Press
Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, speaks during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on 'Policy Response to Russian Interference in the 2016 U.S. Elections' on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, June 20, 2018, in Washington.

Maine U.S. Sen. Angus King says the recent arrest of a Chinese Telecommunication giant's finance chief could strain relations with China.Tech company Huawei's CFO Meng Wanzhou, the daughter of the company’s founder, was arrested in Canada on Saturday.

King, an independent, sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee. He told CNN he's unsure of China's immediate response but says the arrest could create more friction with China. 

"We're dealing with a regime that has absolute power over all levers of state power and they may feel they have to respond in some way," King said Thursday on the network.

The arrest comes on the heals of the G-20 summit in Argentina at which the U.S. and China agreed to relax their ongoing trade war.

"Clearly some kind of response in China is possible. We saw that in the tariff situation. We put on tariffs and they put on tariffs in the opposite direction," King said. 

Some of those tariffs were applied to lobster imports to China, which directly affected the Maine industry.

The Dow has already dropped 2 percent in response to the arrest, according to analysts.