U.S. companies banned from selling components to ZTE

Is it entirely a coincidence? Who knows. The Obama DOJ saw fit to fine ZTE 1.2 billion as part of the plea deal. So the conduct was serious. That makes it hard to argue that the punishment for violating the plea deal is some new thing Trump concocted to fuel a trade war.

Because they are a Chinese entity that buys U.S. made components in the U.S., and violated associated controls on the export of those components.

Yes and similarly without Western markets Taiwanese semiconductor will suddenly without a big paying customer. There is a "demand" and a supply, none of them exist on their own.

No you're not, or you'd realize you're advocating a zero sum game

It's the same as advocating for more women and minorities in industry; white men lose. Some other side will lose, because our economy doesn't operate on "even playing fields."

It operates on "I have advantage and must protect it." The rich have an advantage of being rich and can sell some argument about knowing how to use their leverage to build companies to put people to work.

USA had "The rest of the world is a smoking crater." after WW2

China has "No one else has a manufacturing base for electronics like we do."

Advocating for a level playing field would be like universal healthcare, and not being forced trade away to the rich elite our creative endeavors for basic survival.

You're peddling disingenuous political correctness that ignores physical reality.

I'm not saying it was ever good, but at a later stage, a lot improved. I believe mostly because of world wide media and things that leaked ( stealing resources,...), Which put a lot of pressure on the government

China is simply acting in their long term best interests, according to what they can get away with - adhering to trade agreements where they can without disadvantage, apologizing and promising to do better where they violate them. Meanwhile, half clueless American politicians fiddle while China takes an ever larger lead in critical areas of manufacturing and technology, adding to the manufacturing portfolio that is completely under their control.

Unlike so many others, you yourself can at least see what's happening ("Nobody forced United States and EU companies to relocate their manufacturing to the other side of the planet"), but with seemingly at least half of people under the impression that there is tariff parity between the US & China (who knows where they get such wrong ideas), that China is completely compliant on all agreements, and that any disagreement here is completely an issue of the POTUS being an uninformed child, how do you recommend serious policy makers approach this situation?

The United States assumed the role of world leadership from England based on a lot of luck (geographical isolation from WW2), from my vantage point China is well on it's way from doing the same to the US, but without even needing the benefit of a war, Western corporate leaders have done an amazing amount of work in industrializing China, and the young University educated American public is doing great work running interference for Chinese leaders, by suggesting any voices who dare mention the possibility that China is doing anything wrong are motivated by something equivalent to racism.

To me it seems like an utterly bizarre situation, I can hardly believe I am witnessing it. In my experience, I am a massive minority in these beliefs, but I've never been able to find someone to point to reasoning for why my thinking is wrong.

Japan did a lot of IP theft in the 50s/60s but I don't think those two are really in the same camp as Russia or China.

China lacks mainland fabrication capacity, but Chinese fabless IC companies have very good working relationships with TSMC. Tsinghua Unigroup's bids to buy Micron failed, but they're building a $30bn 3D NAND fab which is due to go online this year. The Chinese government are very serious about building up modern fab capacity.

ARM are British, so there's nothing stopping ZTE from licensing the technology they need to develop a flagship SoC. TSMC will happily fab it for them on a modern process node. Huawei have done it, ZTE are undoubtedly doing feasibility studies as we speak and I wouldn't be at all surprised if Xiaomi and Oppo are thinking about it. In the long term, this sanction could massively backfire by pushing Chinese manufacturers to reduce their dependence on American suppliers.

Aren't Chinese companies also engaging in rampant Cyber theft of IP?

And again: this will achieve the exact opposite. Without US chips at the heart of those phones the chances of backdoored phones increase tremendously.

A couple more moves like these and you might see that part dropped in return for something more forceful. Keep in mind that trade wars and sanctions are the prelude to shooting wars and that after NATO let the Russians roll all over Ukraine there is substantial doubt about whether or not the West would intervene if China made a move on Taiwan.