WASHINGTON — At dinner with China’s president, Xi Jinping, on Saturday night in Buenos Aires, President Trump celebrated their “special” relationship and all but predicted they would emerge with a truce in the trade war between the United States and China.
Seven thousand miles away, unbeknown to both leaders, Canadian police acting at the request of the United States were in the process of detaining Meng Wanzhou, a top executive of one of China’s flagship technology firms, as she changed planes in Vancouver.
The Justice Department is investigating Ms. Meng’s company, Huawei, on charges of violating sanctions on Iran, and her arrest was meant as a warning shot by the Trump administration in its campaign to limit the global spread of Chinese technology. But it has thrown Mr. Trump’s trade negotiations with Beijing into disarray, drawing a sharp protest from the Chinese government and sending financial markets into a panicky swoon, before a modest recovery on Thursday afternoon.
The timing of the arrest, some experts said, could feed the suspicion of Chinese officials that nationalist factions in the Trump administration were trying to sabotage the trade deal. Their mood had already soured since Saturday, when the White House announced the two sides had agreed to 90 days of talks, amid confusion over the timetable and doubts that the Chinese would agree to the trade concessions described by Mr. Trump.
“To detain someone without giving clear reason is an obvious violation of human rights,” said Geng Shuang, a spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry, who demanded Ms. Meng’s immediate release.
For Mr. Xi, these experts said, the episode might be seen as an embarrassing loss of face.
Huawei and Ms. Meng, who in addition to being the company’s chief financial officer is the daughter of its founder, are at the pinnacle of China’s corporate world, which will increase the pressure on Mr. Xi to demand her release. It will also increase the pressure on Mr. Trump to weigh the diplomatic fallout of detaining Ms. Meng, especially after a meeting that he hailed as a breakthrough and a testament to his friendship with Mr. Xi.
The United States and China have carried on trade negotiations amid such tensions before. Talks continued this year as the administration was planning to punish ZTE, another Chinese technology company that violated American sanctions, though Mr. Trump ultimately offered it a reprieve.
“In the past, the United States has been faced with making a deal with China in one arena while being irritated or highly concerned about others, such as human rights or security,” said Scott Kennedy, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “The shoe is now on the other foot, and we will have to see if China can compartmentalize this case.”
For American officials and the White House, the fact that Mr. Trump went into the meeting without knowing about the arrest raised questions about whether the president was properly briefed before a sensitive meeting with a foreign leader.
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