By Ted Mann

WASHINGTON -- President Trump said Tuesday that he would support the continued export of U.S.-made jet engines to China, taking sides in a continuing dispute within the administration about restricting high-tech exports over piracy concerns.

"We don't want to make it impossible to do business with us," Mr. Trump said in a series of tweets Tuesday morning. "That will only mean that orders will go to someplace else. As an example, I want China to buy our jet engines, the best in the World."

The tweet suggested that Mr. Trump had come down on the side of General Electric Co. in a debate within his administration, where some hard-liners on China had hoped to halt the export of jet engines being manufactured for a new Chinese-made airliner, the Comac C919.

The White House didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

GE co-produces the engines in a joint venture with Safran SA of France. It has privately argued that the exports should be allowed to continue, contending fears that the engines could be reverse-engineered were overblown, people familiar with the discussions said.

Mr. Trump's Tuesday-morning tweet stream didn't explicitly mention another internal debate about limiting Chinese access to chip-making technology. The Wall Street Journal has reported that officials in the administration are considering new trade restrictions aimed at cutting off Chinese access to semiconductor technology.

Mr. Trump didn't directly address the semiconductor issue in his tweets. But the industry thought Mr. Trump's overall message that he didn't want to make it "impossible to do business with us" was a sign that he would oppose new restrictions on their China sales.

"We applaud President Trump's tweets supporting U.S. companies being able to sell products to China and opposing proposed regulations that would unduly curtail that ability," said John Neuffer, chief executive of the Semiconductor Industry Association, in a written statement on Tuesday. "As we have discussed with the Administration, sales of non-sensitive, commercial products to China drive semiconductor research and innovation, which is critical to America's economic strength and national security."

Write to Ted Mann at ted.mann@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 18, 2020 12:10 ET (17:10 GMT)

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