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The Trump administration told lawmakers the U.S. government has reached a deal to put Chinese telecommunications company ZTE Corp back in business after it pays a significant fine and makes management changes, a senior congressional aide said on Friday.
U.S. President Donald Trump appeared to confirm the deal in a tweet late on Friday. “I closed it down then let it reopen with high level security guarantees, change of management and board, must purchase U.S. parts and pay a $1.3 Billion fine.”
The reported deal involving China’s second-largest telecommunications equipment maker ran into immediate resistance in Congress, where Democrats and Trump’s fellow Republicans accused him of bending to pressure from Beijing to ease up on a company that U.S. intelligence officials have suggested poses a significant risk to U.S. national security.
ZTE was banned in April from buying U.S. technology components for seven years for breaking an agreement reached after it violated U.S. sanctions against Iran and North Korea.. After ZTE makes a series of changes it would now be allowed to resume business with U.S. companies, including chipmaker Qualcomm Inc.
The deal, earlier communicated to officials on Capitol Hill by the Commerce Department, requires ZTE to pay a substantial fine, place U.S. compliance officers at the company and change its management team, the aide said.
The Commerce Department would then lift an order issued in April preventing ZTE from buying U.S. products. ZTE shut down most of its production after the ruling was announced.
Fox News said Trump told them on Thursday that he had negotiated the $1.3 billion fine with Chinese President Xi Jinping in a phone call.
ZTE, which is publicly traded but whose largest shareholder is a Chinese state-owned enterprise, agreed last year to pay a nearly $900 million penalty and open its books to a U.S. monitor. The penalty stemmed from for breaking an agreement after it was caught illegally shipping U.S. goods to Iran and North Korea, in an investigation dating to the Obama administration.
Source: http://www.oann.com/u-s-reached-deal-to-keep-chinese-telecom-zte-in-business-new-york-times/
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @04:31AM (10 children)
China is giving the US a Congressional aid?
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday May 28 2018, @06:25AM (9 children)
Well it all seems to be about the money!
On prior ZTE stories it was all Homeland security issues, and the risk of having their devices on our networks. I've posted my skepticism about that claim in prior stories.
Now it appears money makes all that risk go away???
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by shortscreen on Monday May 28 2018, @07:11AM (5 children)
According to what TFS says it sounds more like the US zeal to harm NK/Iran resulted in accidentally sanctioning itself. Qualcomm probably wanted to resume selling its wares to ZTE so a face-saving deal was made.
What ZTE buying US components has to do with national security is not clear. "National security" is probably just the stock answer for everything from "intelligence officials."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @07:24AM (3 children)
No nation is ever secure until all other nations, writhing under the foot of oppression, are thankful for the possibility of bodily exercise that the foot provides.
Increase pressure until thankfulness starts.
Increase pressure more to increase thankfulness.
(Score: 1, Troll) by takyon on Monday May 28 2018, @07:32AM (2 children)
It's easy to justify when you have GOD on your side.
United States: GOD's Chosen Superpower
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Touché) by maxwell demon on Monday May 28 2018, @08:43AM (1 child)
Is GOD short for Greed, Overconfidence, Delusion?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Monday May 28 2018, @09:11AM
Guns or Death
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by maxwell demon on Monday May 28 2018, @08:37AM
It's simple: By declaring it an issue of national security, the congress is bypassed.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday May 28 2018, @07:31AM (1 child)
Everything's negotiable. Military + homeland security has a $$$ figure.
And how do you know that "high level security guarantees, change of management and board, must purchase U.S. parts" doesn't address the security concerns?
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Monday May 28 2018, @10:30AM
doesn't
translate as "firmware will include *our* backdoors"?
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Whoever on Monday May 28 2018, @04:38PM
Of course it is. The $500M investment in a Trump real-estate project in Indonesia from the Chinese government.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @04:59AM (6 children)
Fuck Trump.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @05:33AM (5 children)
Fuck all the piece of shit conservatards that voted for Trump. You fuckers voted to destroy this country, so FUCK YOU!
Also, fuck the DNC for running the only candidate who couldn't beat Trump and forcing out a candidate who would have handed Trump the most humiliating defeat of his entire worthless life.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @05:54AM
Pick a nice "diverse" country and move. You can pick a country without whites or without Christians. You can learn a new language. I'm sure you will find the experience enriching and rewarding. Be sure to get your US citizenship properly revoked ASAP, so that you won't have to pay taxes to America.
I don't know how we'll manage without you, but we aren't deserving of your graces anyway.
(Score: 3, Funny) by realDonaldTrump on Monday May 28 2018, @09:08AM (3 children)
Paul Weyrich, fantastic conservative thinker, founded our Heritage Foundation. And he said something very smart, he said "our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down." A little hard to understand, what it means is that the less folks vote, the better it is for conservatives. And the more folks vote, the worse it is for us. Bernie's a smart cookie, he understood that. And he tried to energize the folks who didn't care about politics. Especially our incredible young people. Smart idea. But, the Democratic Party isn't democratic. They call it Democratic. But certain people get A LOT more votes than everybody else. They call them superdelegates. And the superdelegates, compared to Bernie's people, they're a lot more conservative. Bernie brought in all those people, but he went around calling himself a socialist. Which to a lot of folks is scary. And to the superdelegates, possibly that was scary. Right? So they told him "no," they liked Crooked Hillary much better. And maybe they owed her a favor. Or maybe she had very special dossiers about them. Like the phony dossier she had about me.
Believe me, I would have loved to run against Bernie. Much nicer person than Crooked Hillary. And even easier to beat. She beat him, and she's terrible at acting. I would say, do you want to pick me, a very successful actor and businessman, very rich, very new to politics, or do you want to pick Bernie, a career politician? Do you want a guy who would be the oldest President ever and, frankly, is bald? Or do you want a guy who's a very young 69 and has a full head of hair? And do you want the full-blown socialism where college is free and your college degree is worth nothing, or do you just want the universal healthcare? Which, by the way, I'm working on for you. Working very hard on that one.
Bernie tried to energize folks who never voted. But Crooked Hillary didn't pick him as her VP. And, maybe he didn't want to be her VP. She picked someone very boring. Very crooked. And very dumb. Corrupt Kaine. And I think so many Bernie folks became de-energized. Bernie brought them in. But when Bernie got booted, maybe they lost interest. Like when you're very horny, you want to jump in bed with someone sexy. But you see a picture of Crooked Hillary. Or you think about her. And bing bang boom, there goes the sexy mood. She does that to many people. Whatever it was, so many folks didn't vote. Could have voted but didn't. If they all got behind one guy -- or lady -- that person could win. Without taking any votes from me. Or from Crooked Hillary. But, they stayed home. Or stayed at work. While I won OVERWHELMINGLY!!!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @06:19PM (2 children)
I don't even know where to start picking apart that word salad...
Earth to Trump, come in Trump. Hey, is this thing calibrated for inter-dimensional communications? I think we need more power to breach Trump's reality distortion field. Tell California to prepare for a blackout...
A sleazy used-car salesman and master bullshit artist who knows absolutely nothing about what he's about to get into, or someone with experience in the field? Wow, that's a tough choice. Tell me, Mr. Businessman, who would you hire? Someone with many years of experience doing the job and one of the more honest people in his field, or a smooth talker with a well-known lack of integrity and ethics and zero experience in the field who wants to jump right in and "see how it goes" as it were?
"Oldest president ever?" You mean, you? Also, bald people tend to be more honest than those with bad comb-overs, and frankly, Bernie is in far better condition mentally than you've ever been. "Full head of hair?" You're only fooling yourself with that bad comb-over.
As opposed to your full-blown fascist corporatism where college costs will sink you into debt for life and your college degree is worth nothing?
I don't want "universal" health care, I want single payer health care like very properly civilized country has.
Please stop. Seriously. That thing you're working on is very much NOT what We The People want.
See what I mean about bullshit artist? You actually believe your own bullshit. You LOST the popular vote (as in WE THE MOTHER FUCKING PEOPLE) by the largest negative gap EVER. Almost 3 million more people wanted "crooked Hillary" than wanted you. Why? Think about it. They would prefer someone just plain crooked over you. Crooked, versus sleazy, lying, cheating, self-serving, very likely treasonous, and the very benchmark by which crooked is measured.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday May 29 2018, @03:09PM (1 child)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @03:19AM
He's suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @05:20AM (3 children)
For quite some time now, the US has been dispensing with the rule of law and is moving to becoming an autocracy. This is just another step that makes it blatantly obvious.
And make no mistake: the general populace loves their strongmen, as they do everywhere in the world, notwithstanding any local protestations about needing guns to protect the country from them (the strongmen).
(Score: 4, Informative) by Fluffeh on Monday May 28 2018, @06:24AM (2 children)
I don't know about autocracy, this seems like a good old fashioned shakedown really.
If you count the "ban" as one side's opening negotiation, then this is where they've had that face-to-face and someone has kissed the other's hand. Now it seems that the correct apology/punishment has been calculated.
Next step... is normally:
4) Profit...?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @06:33AM
Followed by
5. China will provide technology to Iran and NK on stealthier ways.
This until the two Koreas reunite and kicks out US from neighbourhood - in this case, the 3nm tech from Samsung will become available to China and it won't need US components anymore.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @07:19AM
Why yes, of course, autocracies are a magnet for corruption, also.
In a strong democracy, ZTE would go to court and stand a reasonable chance of being judged fairly. In an autocracy, they pay 1.3bn dollars just because the president wants it so.
The people (aka the constitution and congress) explicitly created laws that allow the president to be autocratic in this case, so I do consider them complicit.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @08:10AM
Man, Trump *almost* stumbled into a good decision here - punishing foreign companies for their malfeasance - but due to some quick dealmaking, he managed to grovel before the Chinese and made sure that the entire world knows that the US has absolutely no spine. Crisis averted! MAGA!
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Monday May 28 2018, @09:26AM (22 children)
The whole point IMHO of this exercise was to indirectly bring pressure on the Chinese government for concessions rather than to destroy ZTE which is indirectly a state-controlled enterprise. We probably won't know for years who knuckled under to whom due to the secrecy of the deal. Trump was at least able to use this ban to negotiate directly with China's head of state.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Monday May 28 2018, @09:42AM (21 children)
But it was presented as "a security matter, 'cause Iran/NK are Evil™". So, pay the fine and we'll just forget about the whole security thingies?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday May 28 2018, @09:59AM (16 children)
And?
And?
I want to point out here is that real world justice, especially on the business level, often works that way. Pay fines and move on (and let us keep in mind that the ZTE has already suffered significant lost business as a result of the ban, it's not just a fine). The question is what happens if there should then be further violations? Does it result in a larger punishment or its lack? Seems to be a lot of AC pulling answers out of their(its) asses on that one rather than discussing this on any sort of factual basis.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday May 28 2018, @11:37AM (15 children)
Interesting question. What makes you think we'll know of such future violations?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @12:21PM (2 children)
I may be misremembering, but wasn't *this* a "future violation"? As in, didn't they violate the ban in the past, got sanctioned, then violated the terms of the sanctions? I'm sure that waiving the punishment they got for ignoring the previous punishment will teach them a lesson.
Trump is a pussy.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday May 28 2018, @01:30PM (1 child)
Um, yes. At that point, we have to ask whether the sanctions escalated? They did with a month plus ban and another fine.
Maybe so, but we're not going to see it here without more evidence.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @03:05PM
1. after Kim goaded him, Trump cancels summit with Kim
2. Kim says "Fuck off, I don't need you to make peace with SK"
3. Trump says "Heh, I'm baak"
Kim played Trump worse than a petulant pussy in only 3 days.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday May 28 2018, @02:38PM (11 children)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Monday May 28 2018, @02:49PM (10 children)
Interesting question. How?
What warranties do we have that a private conversation with no oversight will lead to the sane capabilities in the future?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday May 29 2018, @02:55AM (9 children)
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday May 29 2018, @03:52AM (8 children)
In this circumstances, arranging "penalties" against Chinese companies by "private phone" doesn't bear enough confidence to my taste - not enough checks.
(personal experience: I left my native country mainly due to corruption. And usually the fish rots from the head down)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday May 29 2018, @12:47PM (7 children)
Compared to what? International politics has always been seedy and opaque. And why judge Trump by these standards, but not Xi Jinping?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday May 29 2018, @01:18PM (6 children)
Compared with non-secret negotiations conducted by a team of govt servants or at least with Congress oversight.
Remember the secrecy around TPP agreement?
Here are some examples of possible stink:
- China Approved More Ivanka Trump Trademarks the Same Week As Daddy’s ZTE Pivot [splinternews.com]
- Trump's controversial ZTE order came days after the Chinese government provided millions to a Trump Organisation-tied project [businessinsider.com]
Are they true? Are they false? We may never know, but I know for sure that I haven't heard such "coincidences" with "deals" negotiated with/by the US past (at least the past I can remember).
Because I don't have expectations of high moral ground from the Chinese part - their culture is quite used to greasing the wheels [wikipedia.org].
Do you wish to see the same institutionalized in US?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday May 29 2018, @02:17PM (5 children)
It's been there since the dawn of the US for the same reasons as it exists in China. My view is that all governments should be held to that standard, not just the ones that you currently dislike.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday May 29 2018, @02:26PM (4 children)
Your view about my disliking. On top of an 'what-about Xi' kind of argument.
If we got here, my view is that we wandered enough the breadth and depth of this subject. What say you?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday May 29 2018, @03:08PM (3 children)
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday May 29 2018, @03:22PM (2 children)
If you want to keep in your mind, feel free. You won't object if I'm discarding it from my mind, will you?
I admitted [soylentnews.org] it's a matter of personal taste and provided the motives (based on personal experience) for which the situation stinks to my nose. If this detail was lost from your mind...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Tuesday May 29 2018, @03:40PM (1 child)
You're free to be as ignorant as you'd like So how much would ignorance would you like?
In other words, you are unwilling to provide a reasoned basis for your opinion. I don't care in the least for your "tastes". It's just another flavor of bullshit.
As to the "stink" of the situation, all of the heads of state have been given leeway to operate in that way. We'll just have to see what happens. And if it's somehow kept so secret that we can't glean the truth, then it probably wasn't much of a concession on anyone's part.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday May 29 2018, @03:57PM
I love you too, khallow. Bye.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Monday May 28 2018, @10:36AM (3 children)
N Machiavelli
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Monday May 28 2018, @11:09AM (2 children)
FTFY [ianchadwick.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Informative) by MostCynical on Monday May 28 2018, @11:53AM
Thanks.
I'm usually pretty good first-sourcing, and I've even read a few of his books (not in Italian, alas, only translations)
Live and learn.
From The Prince:
Ch. 18
Mea culpa, mea máxima culpa.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday May 28 2018, @01:34PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @05:13PM
Investigate who is getting their cut of this deal. There is a reason those phones are banned on military bases. Someone is getting a payoff to make this happen.