China is trolling President Donald Trump’s love for the iPhone.
Speaking in an interview on Thursday, Hua Chunying, a frequent Chinese government spokesperson and deputy director of the country’s foreign ministry information department, said that if Americans “are very worried about iPhones being tapped, they can use Huawei.” The comments were earlier reported on by The Washington Post and The Verge.
The comment comes after The New York Times published a report on Wednesday, saying that Chinese spies have been listening in on Trump’s calls from his personal iPhone. The report claims Trump has refused to hand over the iPhone, despite security concerns, and his use of the handset means the Chinese government can listen to his most intimate conversations.
Huawei is now the second-largest smartphone maker in the world behind Samsung and just ahead of Apple. The company makes a variety of devices that are designed to compete with the iPhone, but few of those devices are actually sold in the U.S. Huawei phones are the top choices for Chinese government officials. The handsets have also been all but banned for sale in the U.S. over concerns by the U.S. government that they’re unsafe.
Despite the Times report, Hua said in the interview that any suggestion that China is tapping the president’s phone is “fake news.”
