The US reached a deal to allow ZTE Corp to get back in business after the Chinese telecommunications company pays a record-large fine and agrees to management changes, eliminating a key sticking point as the two countries try to avert a trade war. “We still retain the power to shut them down again,” Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said Thursday in an interview on CNBC. He said the Commerce Department’s $1.4 billion fine, including $400 million in escrow, brings US penalties between last year and this year to $2.3 billion.
The US blocked ZTE’s access to US suppliers in April, saying the company violated a 2017 sanctions settlement related to trading with Iran and North Korea and then lied about the violations. The company announced it was shutting down just weeks after the ban was announced. Under the deal, the ban is suspended for 10 years and can be activated by Commerce should the company commit additional violations during that decade-long “probationary period,” the department said in a statement announcing the agreement.
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