US senators urge keeping ZTE ban in a bid to block a deal by Trump
Lawmakers seek a defence-bill amendment to punish the Chinese telecoms firm after Commerce Department says a less-harsh deal is almost in place
A bipartisan group of six US senators urged their colleagues now drawing up a final defence appropriations bill to retain a ban on selling components to Chinese telecoms giant ZTE Corp, a day after the US Commerce Department said a deal was close with the company to lift the ban.
Republicans Marco Rubio, Tom Cotton and Roy Blunt, together with Democrats Chris Van Hollen, Mark Warner and Bill Nelson sent a letter to the Senate and House Armed Services Committees on Thursday to urge the chairmen, Senator John McCain and Representative Mac Thornberry, to include the amendment in the defence bill.
“We strongly oppose the June 2018 deal with ZTE negotiated by the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) to lift the seven-year ban against the export of US parts and components to ZTE,” the senators wrote.
They expressed concerns that ZTE – along with Huawei, another telecoms giant – “are beholden to the Chinese government and Communist Party, which provides the capacity for espionage and intellectual property theft, and therefore poses clear threats to the national security, people, and economy of the United States”.
The resistance adds yet another wrinkle to a deal that Commerce struck last month to save ZTE, after US President Donald Trump directed the department to come up with an alternative to the seven-year ban, framing it as a favour to his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping and part of a larger strategy to win trade concessions.
On Wednesday, Commerce said in a statement that it had signed an agreement for ZTE to deposit US$400 million into an escrow account, the last step before the ban can be lifted. Additionally, ZTE paid a US$1 billion fine to the US Treasury last month.