Trump’s Broadcom, Qualcomm decision protects US companies, former White House adviser

President Trump’s order to block Broadcom from taking over Qualcomm was a step to protect American companies from foreign competition, Stephen Hadley, former national security advisor for President George W. Bush told FOX Business.

“The concern about this is that Qualcomm is a quarter of the chip business that is going to link and enable a whole family of devices to talk to one another,” Hadley said during an exclusive interview with Maria Bartiromo on “Mornings with Maria.” “It’s critical technology and I think it may be less about the Broadcom takeover and more insuring that Qualcomm can keep up with Huawei.”

The move highlighted President Trump’s protectionist policies and signs of nationalistic tendencies in the U.S., in Hadley’s opinion.

“The fundamental problem is that there is an asymmetry between the U.S. market and the Chinese market,” Hadley said. “The Chinese market is increasingly close to throwing up barriers to U.S. companies and of course the American market is quite open to Chinese investment.”

Rather than having both markets close down, President Trump must get China to open their market in order for the U.S. to move in the direction of open markets, Hadley added.