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  • Sttm - Thursday, June 7, 2018 - link

    A billion dollars, firing everyone in a leadership role that engaged in or allowed the Iranian business, US monitors to prevent new management from following that path, and they get to be in business again with American products.

    Seems like a fair deal. I am sure the 70,000+ employees who didn't have anything to do with it will be glad to have their jobs back.

    And hopefully this gets some cooperation out of China on the overall trade package, and North Korea.
  • Samus - Thursday, June 7, 2018 - link

    That's the most positive way to look at it. But the fact that they were essentially aiding terrorism by selling products to Iran should in itself be zero-tolerance. Most economists, security advisors, and the majority of congress feel this way.

    Which begs the question...what is China going to do for Trump now that he essentially brought their second largest Telecom back to life?
  • Yojimbo - Thursday, June 7, 2018 - link

    Sounds like chopping off your own nose to spite your face. The real reason these people in power don't negotiate is because they are afraid of losing. A safe policy based on arrogance lets them hide their cowardice behind a veil of strength.
  • Reflex - Friday, June 8, 2018 - link

    https://www.nationalreview.com/news/china-contribu...

    This was already answered. Apparently, the Chinese government will back a Trump linked project. More frustrating is that beyond the Iran issue there is also the fact that ZTE (and Huwei) both aggressively spy on their foreign customers, something both have been caught doing repeatedly. They are among the worst about IP theft as well.

    But Trump gets his new hotels and golf course, so fair deal, right?
  • Yojimbo - Friday, June 8, 2018 - link

    I have no idea why you think that story is directly related to the ZTE situation or that the ZTE situation can be linked solely to that. It's a very weak link for anything. China is loaning money to a state-owned construction company that is building a theme park in Indonesia that has some Trump branding? China probably loans billions of dollars to their own construction companies every month for projects all over the world. And the fact seems to be that Trump has lost money since becoming President, not gained it. I am not sure how people can convince themselves that Trump thought he would make money by attacking the establishment and turning himself into a media pariah, unless they think he really believes that he can leave a positive legacy on the U.S. and therefore build his brand that way for his descendents.

    In any case, IP theft is a large problem with Chinese technology trade and extends far beyond ZTE. I don't know how it works with the Chinese government, whether they have an active part in it or if they just look the other way, but it is part of what Trump can address with pushing China on trade. If Trump refuses to negotiate on ZTE and insists on killing it, then he has much less chance of getting any sort of concession from China as far as IP theft policing is concerned. It's the U.S. Senators who seem to be willing to look the other way while it happens in order to not upset the apple cart that's making them money.
  • close - Friday, June 8, 2018 - link

    This had nothing to do with selling stuff to "terrorists". Are you forgetting that US law enforcement was buying espionage and hacking equipment/software from companies that sold the same to the Syrian, North Korean, and other such regimes?

    This was 100% political. Some of the US allies (like Saudi Arabia) also demanded it so it was non-negotiable. It's a trade in which one side first dug a hole for the other and then extended a helping hand.
  • Yojimbo - Friday, June 8, 2018 - link

    "This had nothing to do with selling stuff to "terrorists".... This was 100% political."

    Who calls Iran a terrorist? Governments making decisions on terrorists, selling stuff to "terrorists", foriegn powers, and selling stuff to foreign powers is 100% political. You seem a bit confused as to what politics is...

    As for Saudi Arabia, I really doubt the U.S. is more worried about them than China. You sound a little like Michael Moore.
  • sonny73n - Saturday, June 9, 2018 - link

    Samus calls Iran a terrorist.
  • close - Friday, June 8, 2018 - link

    Yojimbo, "IP theft" is always a problem with rising empires. http://foreignpolicy.com/2012/12/06/we-were-pirate...

    It's how the world works.
  • Yojimbo - Friday, June 8, 2018 - link

    The accuracy of the comparison is only appropriate to the moral charge of the accusations. But the moral charge of the accusations are irrelevant. Self-interest alone is enough to warrant one protecting one's stuff. There's no need to invoke community-preserving values. It'd be the same if someone invaded the U.S. It would be irrelevant whether you think that invasions are "how the world works" or whether you think invasions are somehow morally wrong. The obvious course of action is still to defend yourself.
  • 1prophet - Sunday, June 10, 2018 - link

    That is a false equivalence, because The British rarely accorded outsiders the privilege of touring their cotton plants,

    as opposed to the US corporations who actively built manufacturing plants and transferred much of the necessary infrastructure and manufacturing know how to China in order to save on labor, environmental regulations and other associated costs that would have been incurred by keeping production stateside,
    in effect greatly contributing to to the transfer of technology in no small part due to their own greed, if they actually followed the British example of keeping their manufacturing technology secret and domestic you would have far less problems with IP theft but also less profits for the 1%.

    One example of many were US firms thought they can exploit the cheaper Chinese manufacturing costs for the actual product while keeping the designs and IP stateside indifferent or to ignorant from greed to realize that keeping actual production stateside is a much greater deterrent than some Chinese law that they hoped will protect them if their Chinese partner decide to dump them and sell the actual product direct.

    "Their strategy was to kill us" explained CEO Daniel McGahn in an interview with CNN.

    In 2007, American Superconductor started doing business in China. The company partnered with Sinovel, which manufactured the wind turbines. American Superconductor made the technology that powered the turbines.

    The venture turned AMSC into a billion-dollar business. It built a factory in China, set up a design center in Europe and added hundreds of jobs in China and in the United States.

    In March of 2011 it all began to unravel.

    McGahn says Sinovel owed American Superconductor about $70 million for a shipment it had already received. Sinovel refused to pay, and it also refused another shipment that was ready to go.

    American Superconductor's stock price halved almost overnight, losing nearly a billion dollars in shareholder equity. It was forced to cut 700 jobs over time. "
  • Reflex - Friday, June 8, 2018 - link

    I and a lot of others believe that the Chinese government investment in Trump interests is related because of both the timing and the pattern of foreign policy routinely changing when The Trump Organization has its interests on the line. There are also the threats TTO has made in Panama for an unfavorable decision.

    It is very rational at this point to assume that policy decisions, both foreign and domestic, have at least some relation to his business interests more often than not.
  • Manch - Friday, June 8, 2018 - link

    Zero Tolerance is what got them cut off to begin with. With this deal, he now has his thumb on power switch for the second largest Chinese telecom for the next 10 years. That's a lot of leverage for the US.
  • close - Friday, June 8, 2018 - link

    Eh... So and so. The US still relies heavily on cheap manufacturing in China or in other Asian countries under Chinese political influence. What the US did is a negotiating tactic but in no way a silver bullet.

    Between Chinese hacking and manufacturing there's plenty of leverage on that side also.
  • Manch - Monday, June 11, 2018 - link

    Yes, lots of cheap stuff from China, but nothing the US can't survive without or source elsewhere. Not saying doesn't have any leverage. Far from it. But, most highend tech isn't fabbed there for a reason. Don't take my comment in a bubble. It was a reply to another comment.
  • Hereiam2005 - Thursday, June 7, 2018 - link

    So the whole thing was an extortion racket?
  • fteoath64 - Friday, June 8, 2018 - link

    Technically yes. Politically, just a normal day's job. Ethically, Trumpian what else ?.
  • Yojimbo - Friday, June 8, 2018 - link

    Trump isn't a genius that invented the idea of sanctions, fines, and political wrangling, neither from a practical nor an ethical point of view. I do wonder what your ethical views are, though, on destroying the jobs of 70,000 people because of the actions of a few of their bosses when there is another way.
  • 29a - Friday, June 8, 2018 - link

    The too big to fail argument.
  • ToTTenTranz - Friday, June 8, 2018 - link

    ZTE's 2017 profits were around $720 million.

    A $1.4B fine means 2 years of all profits going down the drain, plus the amount they lost by closing down for almost a month, plus paying for the US-assigned team of auditors that will be breathing down their necks for 10 years (which some have been claiming will amount to another ~$200M.)

    If this isn't a harsh punishment then I don't know what would have been.

    And then on the news and social media all we see is either "Trump is selling out to China" or "Trump is extorting these poor chinese".
    Which one is it, people?
  • close - Friday, June 8, 2018 - link

    Well it is selling out. Because "someone" made sure to scream that the US is not doing business with terrorist supporters. Now it turns out it's negotiable. So how does it look for the normal person when they realize it was nothing but populist talk and the real "reasons" just went in someone's pockets?

    I'll tell you, as a sell out.
  • Yojimbo - Friday, June 8, 2018 - link

    The terrorist supporters have supposedly been kicked out. Corporations don't commit crimes, the people who head them do.
  • jrs77 - Friday, June 8, 2018 - link

    American Imperialism at it's finest. Do as you're told or else...

    Sorry, but I don't want to the US to be the worlds overlords, especially not if half of the citizens reject scientific facts, are racist and are generally uneducated.
  • B3an - Sunday, June 10, 2018 - link

    I hate Yankeestan as much as everyone else, but you just sound like a SJW. People like you with things like "muh racism/sexism/imperialism/patriarchy" is why they have an orange as president in the first place.
  • jrs77 - Sunday, June 10, 2018 - link

    I hate people, who don't follow the scientific method, don't use reason and are incapable of forming an opinion due to the lack of education. That very much includes all those SJW snowflakes aswell.

    That's why I said half the US citizens and ot just the 60 million who voted for Trump. All the idiots who cheered for Hillary Clinton and are in support of the diversity-politics of the DNC are just as bad. And to be clear... it's not just the Trump-voters who are racist... it's a much bigger problem in the US.
  • watzupken - Friday, June 8, 2018 - link

    I feel this is a win win situation for both US and China. US gain money in their coffers and favor from China, while ZTE remains in business and minimal job loss in China.
    There are people that are unhappy over supposed IP thefts, and I don't deny features and design tend to look too familiar for comfort at times. However, I do feel these China manufacturers are the ones that are keeping prices in check. Otherwise, we may have to fork out more than 999 bucks for the likes of an iPhone X or Google Pixel 2.
  • 1prophet - Friday, June 8, 2018 - link

    Of course they keep prices in check, like the southern slaves did for northerners, god forbid you have to pay someone a living wage, benefits, have enforceable labor laws, have a good and safe workplace, and of course follow whatever environmental laws are required to keep your neighborhood safe from pollution, something most Americans believe is their right when they work for an employer,

    because that might mean you would have to pay 999 bucks or more for your precious iPhone X or Google Pixel 2.

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