Enlarge / Donald Trump. (credit: Getty | Pool)

Last week, smartphone giant ZTE shut down its “major operating activities” after the Trump administration imposed a crippling seven-year export ban on the company. But on Sunday, Donald Trump signaled that ZTE might get a reprieve:

President Xi of China, and I, are working together to give massive Chinese phone company, ZTE, a way to get back into business, fast. Too many jobs in China lost. Commerce Department has been instructed to get it done!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 13, 2018

It’s a remarkable change of tone for a president who long railed against China for stealing American jobs.

ZTE is China’s number-two smartphone maker, and as recently as last year it was the number-four smartphone vendor in the US. But the company is facing a de facto corporate death sentence after US officials caught the company covertly sending telecommunications equipment with significant American-made components to Iran and North Korea in violation of US export restrictions.