Signs from China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom will be seen at the China International Import Expo (CIIE) at the National Exhibition and Convention Center in Shanghai, China, November 5, 2018.
Aly Song | Reuters
The New York Stock Exchange will eventually remove three Chinese telecommunications giants.
The stock exchange will remove US shares in China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom from the Big Board, the NYSE said on Wednesday.
Last week, the NYSE said it would list the shares to comply with an executive order signed by President Donald Trump. The order seeks to prevent US companies and individuals from investing in enterprises that the government believes are helping the Chinese military.
That reversed the decision on Monday and caused a lot of confusion. Finance Minister Steven Mnuchin told the exchange he did not agree with the reversal, a senior administration official told CNN’s Eamon Javers on Tuesday.
The NYSE said the second reversal was due to new guidelines from the Treasury’s foreign asset control office that people in the US could not trade with the three companies in certain transactions from January 11. Trading in the three bonds will be suspended by 4pm ET on Jan. 11, the exchange said.
Shares of China Telecom fell 1.7% early on Wednesday, while China Mobile was down about 1% and China Unicom up about 0.8%.
Chinese officials have criticized the NYSE’s original decision, with a spokesman for the China Securities Regulatory Commission saying on Monday that the executive order completely ignores the realities of relevant companies and the legal rights of world investors, and the market rule and order severely damage. “
Trump issued the original order in November, part of a series of moves against Chinese companies by his administration.
In August, the president launched a legal battle for the social media site TikTok, with a similar mandate targeting its parent company, ByteDance, and Tencent in China. Several U.S. companies, including Oracle and Walmart, have held talks to take part in the video-sharing app.
Trump signed a bill in December that would force the removal of Chinese shares that do not meet U.S. audit standards, and the government ordered the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board not to invest in Chinese companies in May.
—With reporting by Christine Wang