Susie Wiles Lobby Firm Helped China's ZTE Escape Sanctions

The new White House chief of staff, a former registered agent for Nigerian clients, has extensive ties to groups at odds with the MAGA agenda.

This news item was published in partnership with Unherd.

A political consultant with a long history of providing corporate interests and foreign agents with Government favors is set to become the most powerful figure in the White House.

In his first major personnel decision since Tuesday’s election victory, Donald Trump announced yesterday that Susie Wiles will serve as his chief of staff. Wiles is a powerful operator who has spent a career in Republican establishment politics, from stints with Rep. Jack Kemp to the Bush-Quayle campaign and Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential bid. More recently, along with Chris LaCivita, she was the behind-the-scenes manager of Trump’s successful campaign, making her appointment an expected choice.

Yet it is her work beyond the campaign trail that may bring pause to supporters hoping the President-elect will deliver on his America First promises. This is because Wiles is the co-chair of Mercury Public Affairs, one of the largest lobbying firms in the US. The company counts many clients which are at odds with various aspects of the Trump agenda. Over the last year, its roster has included Kraft Heinz and Nestlé, makers of ultra-processed junk foods that will be at odds with the promised “Make America Healthy Again” reforms of public health agencies. According to forms filed with Congress, Wiles is directly registered as a lobbyist for tobacco firm Swisher International on matters related to “FDA regulations.”

The client list includes AT&T, Airbnb, eBay, Archer Daniels Midland, and many other corporate giants. However, it may be her company’s extensive foreign lobbying that will raise the most eyebrows.

Mercury currently represents the state of Qatar, Libya’s national oil company, and three major Chinese corporations: JinkoSolar, Hikvision USA, and Alibaba. The Chinese firms have contended with American tariffs and other restrictions. Hikvision, in particular, has faced enhanced sanctions from the Biden administration over allegations that the company’s surveillance cameras are used for human rights abuses and military purposes.

Mercury lobbyists, ethics filings show, have worked this year on Hikvision to contact the State Department and the Treasury Department, presumably on lifting the restrictions. There are thousands of lobbyists in Washington, but a firm with a direct line to the president and a history of shaping foreign policy — in exchange for cash — on China is far from the norm.

Consider the case of ZTE, a major Chinese telecommunication company viewed as a national security threat due to concerns that it provides Chinese intelligence agencies with backdoor access to vital communication networks across the globe. In April 2018, the first Trump administration moved to decisively curb ZTE’s growth by banning the state-backed company from purchasing American-made equipment. It was the opening salvo in what was expected to be a global confrontation with the Chinese telecom industry.

In response, ZTE hired Mercury on a $75,000-per-month retainer to unwind the decision. One of the primary lobbyists on the campaign was Bryan Lanza, a former Trump 2016 campaign staffer who works as a partner at the firm. Records show that he promptly began contacting White House and sanctions officials on behalf of ZTE.

Lanza and Eric Branstad — the son of Trump’s ambassador to China, Terry Branstad — also traveled to China the following month. The meeting would not have been known had Chinese officials not publicized the gathering. The China Development Research Foundation, a group tied to the Chinese Communist Party’s United Work Department, which works to spread China’s political influence abroad, published pictures of Lanza’s June 2018 delegation.

In a move that shocked observers, Trump tweeted in May of that year that he was rethinking the restrictions and would negotiate a deal to back down. “President Xi of China, and I, are working together to give massive Chinese phone company, ZTE, a way to get back into business, fast,” he wrote. “Too many jobs in China lost.” In July 2018, the Commerce Department reversed course and lifted the ban on ZTE.

For some Trump insiders, the elevation of Wiles, who has previously lobbied on behalf of other foreign interests, including a Nigerian political party, feels like déjà vu. John Kelly, a former Marine Corps. General was an establishment figure who also spun through the revolving door and served on boards of several defense contractors. He later turned on Trump, accusing him of being a fascist who would govern as a dictator.

“There’s going to be six to 12 months and Trump’s going to figure out he’s being scammed again by his own chief of staff,” a former Trump campaign staffer, who asked not to be named, told me. “And then he’s going to try to correct. And by then, you know, it’s too late.”

Photo: Republican presidential nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump praises his campaign senior advisor Susie Wiles during an election night event at the Palm Beach Convention Center on November 06, 2024 in West Palm Beach, Florida. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)