Before taking off for Tokyo last week, Donald Trump threw a bone to investors fretting about the fate of negotiations to end the US trade dispute with China, which have taken a negative turn.

The US president said there remained a “good possibility” that an agreement would be reached. But, more importantly, he added that a deal could include a resolution to the stand-off over Huawei, the Chinese telecoms network company accused by the US of violating sanctions, stealing intellectual property and practising espionage.

The timing of Mr Trump’s intervention was as remarkable as it was incongruous. Just a week earlier, the US had placed Huawei on a commerce department special blacklist of foreign entities that are considered risky from a national security perspective — sharply tightening export controls on sales to the Chinese company from the US.