Senators Urge Trump Administration to Further Address ZTE Ban Controversy
Two groups of senators who criticized the President Donald Trump administration for lifting the Department of Commerce's ban on U.S. companies selling telecom software and equipment to ZTE are urging administration officials to address the controversy. Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner, R-Va., and Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., called on Trump Tuesday to reinstate the ZTE ban. Rubio was among sponsors of language attached to the Senate-passed version of the FY 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (HR-5515) that would reverse Commerce's decision and replace it with alternative concessions the company agreed to earlier this month (see 1806120001). Senators voted 85-10 June 18 to pass HR-5515 with the ZTE reversal provision intact, despite Trump's push against it (see 1806200077).
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“The Senate and the U.S. Intelligence Community are in agreement that ZTE poses a significant threat to our national security,” Rubio and Warner wrote Trump. “We urge you to heed the leaders of the U.S. Intelligence Community, supported by a strong bipartisan consensus in the Senate, that we must pursue policies that prevent the widespread use of ZTE products in the U.S.” ZTE “is a state-backed enterprise that is ultimately loyal not to its shareholders, but to the Chinese Communist Party and Chinese government,” the senators said. “This patronage relationship poses unacceptable risks to American sovereignty; risks that will only increase if the company is permitted to establish itself deeply in America’s telecommunications infrastructure.” The White House didn't comment.
Rubio and two other sponsors of the HR-5515 ZTE language -- Sens. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and Chris Van Hollen, D-Md. -- urged Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross Monday to “immediately provide assurances, in the form of guidance and waivers” to telecom operators and others who want to remove the Chinese company's products from their networks. “We are concerned to hear” that Commerce and its Bureau of Industry and Security have repeatedly declined to “provide clarity” on whether telecom operators and other customers “can take actions to remove ZTE items from their network infrastructure and install products from other suppliers, and whether other suppliers can take actions to provide these customers with alternative products,” the senators wrote Ross: The department's “reluctance to clarify such uncertainty is patently unjust to customers who have had no part in the malign conduct that caused ZTE to be penalized in the first place. It is also profoundly unfair to other suppliers who, unlike ZTE, have complied with U.S. export controls and sanctions laws.” Commerce didn't comment.
The Senate Appropriations Committee, meanwhile, added provisions to several of its FY 2019 budget bills that would ban federal agencies from using ZTE products. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and other Democrats “do not see this as a replacement” for the HR-5515 language, a spokesperson said: “That was sanctioning ZTE. This is just ensuring that we don't procure from” the company. The House Appropriations Committee attached similar procurement ban language last month to its FY 2019 Commerce, Justice and Science appropriations bill (see 1805170076).