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US Reaches Deal To Keep Chinese Telecom ZTE in Business (reuters.com)
The Trump administration told lawmakers the U.S. government has reached a deal to put Chinese telecommunications company ZTE Corp back in business, a senior congressional aide said on Friday. From a report: The deal, 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 preventing ZTE from buying U.S. products.
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. The Commerce Department decision would allow it to resume business with U.S. companies, including chipmaker Qualcomm Inc.
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. The Commerce Department decision would allow it to resume business with U.S. companies, including chipmaker Qualcomm Inc.
Make America Great Again. That President Trump sure goes out of his way for the forgotten people of America.
and Carrier Air conditioning would very much like a word with Mr President. Maybe if they could block him from building his next hotel...
Seriously, the amount of open corruption and violations of the emoluments clause on display here is insane. And at the rate this guy is going he's on track to get reelected when the Dems run Hilary Bot 2.0 in 2020...
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ZTE was getting a lot of its components from American suppliers and the ban could have hurt those suppliers financially. Some may even have reduced their work forces if demand dropped. This probably also plays into Trump's plans to get China to buy more American products to reduce the trade deficit.
There's also the remote chance that Trump has money invested in those American suppliers. We'll probably never know.
Trump's announcement that he would be saving Chinese jobs came just days after China funded a Trump project in China, with half a billion dollars of that sweet, sweet cash.
This has absolutely nothing to do with the $500,000,000.00 that a Chinese government bank just poured into a failing Trump property in Indonesia.
http://www.businessinsider.com...
No quid pro quo. You're the quid pro quo.
You are welcome on my lawn.
They did pay a fine as part of the original settlement, and a moderately severe one, too. The Commerce Department's decision to ban them from buying American hardware and software was levied only after they failed to adhere to the terms of settlement, specifically, that several executives would be punished, fired, and receive no bonuses. They didn't follow up on punishing the executives, hence the ban.
It's not like this was a draconian move out of the blue - they were told ahead of time what the consequences would be for not doing what they agreed to do, and they did it anyway. I presume the assumption was that the Commerce Department wouldn't actually follow through with it, which turned out to be wrong.
'course, Trump's probably the most corrupt president we've ever had, so it turns out to have been a fine move by ZTE.
Never underestimate the stupidity inherent in all human beings.
Sounds to me like the Russians exported the pee tape to China.
Spy Handler stated, in part:
China has been the #2 source of illegal immigrants to the US for a long long time, at least two decades. .... but it used to be very common to see headlines like,
"Cargo container seized at port of Long Beach found with fifty Chinese migrants living inside while being unloaded from cargo ship."
(Quote above edited to remove gratuitous xenophobia.)
The "#2" claim is bullshit - but the People's Republic is, in fact, a non-trivial source of unauthorized immigrants to the USA. According to the New York Times, there are currently 268,000 of them here.
That number is dwarfed by the number of unauthorized immigrants from Mexico and Central and South America, but it's still more than the population of Newark, NJ (at least, as of the 2010 census). And China refuses to accept deportees, so we're basically stuck with them, even if the current administration manages to locate them all - which it won't, because it's focused exclusively on Hispanics.
It's also worth noting that Chinese immigrants, both authorized and unauthorized, tend to be younger, and have skills that are better-suited to the American job market, than the average Hispanic immigrant. They also tend not to arrive in shipping containers. Most of them arrive legally, on tourist visas - which they blithely overstay, because there's nowhere near the level of effort expended on tracking them down as there is on tracking down Hispanics.
In my experience (and I know several such Chinese), they tend to be highly entrepreneurial. The ones I know are engaged in smuggling consumer goods - not from China to the USA, but from the USA to China. (Levis 501's are hugely popular - and extremely costly - in China, for instance.) In a twisted way, you could say they're actually contributing to this country's economy, and doing a tiny bit to redress our trade imbalance with China.
In another way, you could say they're probably laundering money for the Chinese mob - and I'd bet a shiny, new, Ohio quarter you'd be right ...
Check out my novel.
"Why would we destroy ZTE over some small infraction rather than have them pay a fine?"
Because loss of the US market couldn't come close to destroying ZTE. And possibly because of their acknowledgment and payment of US based IP they've used on a world wide basis for years may be more profitable for us. And possibly to keep the market oscillating until election time.
Because we all know what will win the next election, not ideals, but our retirement account performances.
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So, which is it? Is Trump a racist xenophobe who will do anything to stop foreign trade? Or is he a feckless cosmopolitan?
I was in China recently and 501s were on sale in big chain shops at normal prices.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
They have done a great job of destroying American jobs, but now, they are making certain that China will retain these jobs so that they can continue to send out American tech to other nations.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
AmiMoJo noted:
I was in China recently and 501s were on sale in big chain shops at normal prices.
That's interesting. My next-door neighbor - who's married to a Chinese national - visits there fairly regularly. He's the one who informed me otherwise.
Are you sure the ones you saw were genuine Levis? After all, the counterfeiting of U.S. brands by Chinese companies is a perennial issue in trade negotiations, n'est ce pas ... ?
Check out my novel.
Maybe it depends where you go. In Guangzhou they were available, but not in Fuzhou.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Are you sure the ones you saw were genuine Levis?
Don't doubt it. Companies are generally happy to forgo some ridiculous markups in exchange for access to a wider market. It is the very definition of pricing what the market will bear.
I also remember the outrage in Australia a few years ago where a backpack company founded and based in Australia, manufactured in China sold backpacks in the USA for less than half the cost and with significantly higher expenses (import duties and longer shipping route). The answer to the outrage was simple: "I charge what I need to in order to maximise my profit. Australians were willing to pay this price."
It is the same in China. Interestingly in China it's not based on the general country level market but is highly localised. I went to a nice supermarket in a nice part of town and they were charging the equivalent of $90USD for Nautica polo shirts. I've never paid more than $40 for a genuine Nautica polo in my life. I sure as hell didn't expect to see this price on the Chinese mainland (Hong Kong or Macau I would have expected it). On the other side of town you could get the identical shirt, same fabric, same cut, same modern season colour for $20.
they were told ahead of time what the consequences would be for not doing what they agreed to do, and they did it anyway
Can you blame them? Look at what happened. No one cares about the Commerce Department when you have friends in all the right places.