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“So is this Trump helping bail out ZTE in exchange for China stepping back from Iran and NK?”

It’s also possible that this is overkill on the part of regulators. ZTE buys $2b a year worth of parts from American vendors. This ruling will lead some non-American equipment manufacturers to source from non-American vendors, where possible. It’s a risky ploy.

What if China decided that any supplier with operations in China must stop supplying Apple? They could literally shut down Apple. Note that the impact on China’s economy wouldn’t be particularly significant, because these are all low level assembly jobs, and most of Apple’s suppliers are non-Chinese companies where most of the value-added (the design jobs) isn’t tacked on in China. But Apple would be up the creek, because all of its tooling (technically FoxConn’s) would be marooned in China with no hope of being moved out, because of Chinese regulations.

What if China decided that any supplier with operations in China must stop supplying Apple?

Won't happen. Apple contracts through several companies, most notably FoxConn, which is a Taiwanese company which has factories everywhere, not just in China. And FoxConn makes products for hundreds of companies, not just Apple. If China targeted FoxConn, it would hurt hundreds of tech companies but Apple would survive as Apple builds many of its own components here in the USA as well as abroad. Apple has made a major push to manufacture more components in the USA, more so than most companies.