Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Friday that a proposal to reinstate penalties against Chinese telecom firm ZTE has been removed from the final version of an annual defense policy bill.
The bipartisan amendment was added to the Senate’s version of the National Defense Authorization Act by a floor vote, but Schumer said it has been removed as the House and Senate finalize the bill in conference.
“By stripping the Senate’s tough ZTE sanctions provision from the defense bill, President Trump — and the congressional Republicans who acted at his behest — have once again made President Xi [Jinping] and the Chinese government the big winners and the American worker and our national security the big losers,” Schumer said in a statement.
The legislation would have reinstated penalties levied against the company for violating Iran and North Korea sanctions. It was cosponsored by Sens. Tom Cotton, R-Ark.; Marco Rubio, R-Fla.; Chris Van Hollen, D-Md.; Mark Warner, D-Va; Roy Blunt, R-Mo.; and Bill Nelson, D-Fla.
“This is a huge mistake. Beyond frustrated that Republican leaders are caving to the Trump Administration’s demands on ZTE. This can only make our country less safe,” Warner said in a tweet Friday.
The penalties threatened to scuttle a deal between President Trump and China that seeks to rehabilitate the company, but many in Congress see ZTE as a national security threat.
“So chances that a China controlled telecomm will not just stay in business, but do so here inside the U.S. sadly just went up,” Rubio tweeted.
The House version of the NDAA included a provision that blocks the U.S. government from doing business with the company.
The final conference report on the defense bill is expected to be unveiled early next week.
A GOP aide confirmed to the Washington Examiner the ZTE language had been removed from the Senate’s National Defense Authorization measure and some fear now it could stir up enough opposition to sink the bill.
According to aide, the White House “pressured House Republicans” to leave it out of their version of the bill and the Senate, in turn, dropped the ZTE languange in exchange for adding language into the bill that stregnthens the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States, of CFIUS, which oversees foreign acquisitions of U.S. companies.
“Now it’s a possibility that Democrats could join with hawkish Republicans to take down,” the Senate bill, a Republican source told the Washington Examiner.
Democrats accused Republicans of caving in to the White House, which called on the Department of Commerce to lift the ZTE sanctions in exchange for a fine and reforms to the company. Some Republicans are also angry about the decision to strip out the sanctions language.
“Given the specific details many of my Senate colleagues know about #ZTE & how #China intends to use them against the U.S., I am surprised they caved so easily in conference,” Rep. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., tweeted Friday.
