Trump Signs Defense Bill With Watered-Down ZTE Sanctions (cnet.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNET: President Donald Trump on Monday signed a $716 billion defense policy bill that weakened efforts to punish Chinese telecom giant ZTE for violating trade laws. The bill, named for ailing Arizona Sen. John McCain, prohibits the U.S. government and its contractors from buying certain telecommunications and video surveillance equipment from ZTE, Huawei and a handful of other Chinese communications companies. The ban covers components and services deemed "essential" or "critical" to any government system. Some lawmakers had hoped to use the bill to reinstate tough penalties against ZTE, but the compromise bill removed a provision that would undo a deal the Commerce Department struck in June for ZTE to pay a $1 billion penalty to resume business with U.S. suppliers. But lawmakers agreed to abandon that effort in late July. Huawei called the inclusion of its products in the bill "ineffective, misguided and unconstitutional." They added: "It does nothing to identify real security risks or improve supply chain security, and will only serve to stifle innovation while increasing internet costs for U.S. consumers and businesses. We believe that the American people deserve equal access to the best possible connections and smart device options, and will keep working to make this happen."

Comments

also

[dehachel12]

president trump signs a ridiculously large DOD budget.

Re:also

[110010001000]

They need to keep the corporate welfare queens propped up.

$717 billion

[110010001000]

"Congress approved $1.56 billion for three littoral combat ships, even though the Navy only requested one."

Classic. That is when I hear the word "Conservative" or "Progressive" in relation to politics, I always laugh.

Re:$717 billion

[Dragonslicer]

Democrat party wants free rain for terrorists

Are you suggesting we should make them pay for all of their rain instead?

Borrowing the entire defense budget

[sjbe]

President Donald Trump on Monday signed a $716 billion defense policy bill

For perspective please note that the defecit in 2017 was $665 billion. So for all practical purpose we are borrowing the entire defense budget and in the process spending more money than China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, India, France, the UK, and Japan COMBINED. Call me crazy but I'm pretty sure we could put a good chunk of that money to better use.

Re:Borrowing the entire defense budget

[bluefoxlucid]

Winston Churchill once demolished a Conservative defense budget, tearing it down to 1/10 its original size. He described his own budget, trimming the number of warships and other such provisions to a fraction of that for which the Conservatives had called.

Churchill's defense budget and his program funded thereby was sufficient to lose two-thirds of its ships and still destroy all of the European naval power, and then land troops and demolish their militaries. He called for a military which could demolish Europe three times over.

The United States wastes a lot of money in performing its functions, producing $2 of results for $5 of spending. Our military could provide greater defense with better technology at lower costs were the entirety of its programs not run by disorganized incompetents. The people doing the work are not specialized in managing the overall picture and, besides, are quite busy enough; and the people running the overall picture are bureaucrats who care little for fiscals, as it is Congress's problem to obtain the money.

Re:Borrowing the entire defense budget

[Anonymous Coward]

SS is self-sufficient. It is not adding to any deficit.

SS is being gutted to try and pay for that 16% of defense.

Stop passing around stupid information.

This is like if you had two businesses, one was a great success, the other failing slowly. As the failing business continues to fail, you start taking money from your successful business to help run things in your failing business.

Eventually your failing business brings them both down.

All because you were a greedy little fuck. (This is directed to the politicians who keep trying to take OUR money)

Re:ZTE Sanctions Watered Down

[Oswald McWeany]

So, we have demonstrably proven that the Chinese are conducting Cyber-warfare against us. This includes shipping pre-hacked devices to the United States, such as networking equipment and video surveillance systems.

Yet we impose a tariff on Canadian steel for national security purposes? WTF

The tariff's on Canada are to punish Canada for exporting Justin Bieber to us.

Cut defense

[sjbe]

Considering defense is barely 16% of Fed spending, and social programs (SS, medicare, etc) is around 57%, I think I know where we should really start cutting.

Yep, Defense.

Oh you meant we should take away health care from our elderly and poor to fund a needlessly oversized military? That's weapons grade stupid. Cutting military spending is the biggest no brainer ever. We could cut the deficit in half tomorrow and still spend more on our military than every other country on earth. Social security is self sustaining and does not affect the federal deficit. We need to cut defense spending to more reasonable levels and raise taxes to cover the rest. No this would not result in fiscal Armageddon. The only other option is to cut medicare and medicaid and cutting that would be stupid and hurt a lot of people needlessly. The rest of the federal budget is inconsequential as far as the deficit goes so any debate about the deficit that doesn't involve some combination of raising taxes, cutting the military and/or cutting medicare/medicaid is a waste of time.