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The United States Senate has passed an amendment that reinstates the ban on Chinese telecoms concern ZTE doing business with US-based companies.
President Trump said he’d secured a reversal of the ban as a personal favour to Chinese president Xi Jinping in the hope that the show of good faith would ease trade negotiations between the two nations. ZTE was banned from dealing with US firms for flouting laws about exporting to Iran and North Korea. The ban cut ZTE off from critical component-makers like Qualcomm and led to it shuttering production lines and resellers dumping its products.
Trump's plan to have his friendship with Xi ease tensions appears not to have worked, in the short term at least, because the Trump administration today issued a statement that said “China apparently has no intention of changing its unfair practices related to the acquisition of American intellectual property and technology” and therefore threatening tariffs on US$200bn of Chinese goods.
The threat came after Trump last week announced tariffs on $50bn of Chinese goods, sparking retaliatory tariffs on about $35bn of US-made goods from China.
All of which doesn’t look like that personal favour worked out as planned.
Back to the ZTE vote, as it saw US Senators from both sides of politics decry the removal of the ban on grounds of national security. A joint statement from senior Republican and Democratic senators read: “We're heartened that both parties made it clear that protecting American jobs and national security must come first when making deals with countries like China, which has a history of having little regard for either. It is vital that our colleagues in the House keep this bipartisan provision in the bill as it heads towards a conference.”
And there’s the rub, because the US House of Representatives has passed a version of the same bill without the ZTE ban. Reconciling the bill may yet see ZTE given a lifeline, although the Senate vote passed 85 votes to 10 so there’s clearly not much will for a reversal.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 20 2018, @01:36AM (13 children)
All those american workers in all those cellphone factories are very happy about this.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Wednesday June 20 2018, @01:47AM (2 children)
Possibly you're being sarcastic. Or possibly you're very dumb or don't like to read. Because our Senate wants to stop ZTE from buying American cellphone parts. As a punishment to ZTE. But if it happens it will hurt our great American workers. Who I always, always put first!!!!
(Score: 3, Touché) by aristarchus on Wednesday June 20 2018, @06:57AM (1 child)
Finally! Proof the realDonad is not the Real donald. Except that it is an epithet, and not any kind of factual claim. Oh, dear.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 20 2018, @01:01PM
Lock him up! Lock him up! Lock him up!
UID 6614! UID 6614! UID 6614!
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 20 2018, @04:46AM (9 children)
Upon agreeing to ease up on ZTE, Trump's development project in Indonesia got a $half-billion investment from China.gov. [google.com]
The dude can't go an hour without violating one of the multiple instances of emoluments clauses in the Constitution.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Wednesday June 20 2018, @08:54AM (8 children)
Should be easy to come up with a case for impeachment then.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by FakeBeldin on Wednesday June 20 2018, @11:25AM (7 children)
The problem isn't coming up with a case. The problem is that both House and Senate need to overwhelmingly support it.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday June 20 2018, @12:31PM (5 children)
No, they don't. I can think of several cases where criminal evidence had effect even when no one official was willing to support it. At the least, the media will run with it which is better than usual. And a rich person accepting bribes is not the easiest thing to defend. Republican party might not want to take the hit for Trump.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday June 20 2018, @02:58PM (3 children)
Dafuq? Are you just feeling argumentative? Or, you got a thing for Fakebeldin?
"both House and Senate need to overwhelmingly support it." re impeachment
If a supermajority of both the House and the Senate does not support an impeachment of the president, then there can be no conviction. Without the conviction, the president cannot be removed. Or - are you hoping for a Nixon-style resignation? I don't see that happening with the funny looking bastard in the White House today.
And, meanwhile - if Trump were impeached, or otherwise removed from office - how is Pence going to make things any better?
Facepalm
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 20 2018, @04:41PM (1 child)
Next year both Trump and Pence will be impeached and convicted leaving Pelosi as President.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday June 21 2018, @01:10AM
Seriously - pull your head out of your ass, and get some oxygen.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday June 21 2018, @04:31AM
And if the House and Senate don't overwhelming support an obvious case for impeachment, then what happens? The US public has more tools at its disposal than merely hoping that elected officials respect the law. For example, that's a big part of how Clinton lost the recent election.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 20 2018, @05:41PM
Trouble is that the Rs have become the party of Trump.
It is the Trump fans that are their constituency, and they know it.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday June 20 2018, @05:02PM
The problem isn't coming up with a case. The problem is that both House and Senate need to overwhelmingly support it.
The problem is Republicans. Full Stop.