SENATE BACKS OFF DEMANDS FOR SANCTIONS ON ZTE

» Senate Republicans WASHINGTON have dropped their attempt to reimpose U.S. sanctions on the Chinese telecommunications giant ZTE, lawmakers said Friday, a victory for President Donald Trump as congressional Republicans abandoned a rare effort to thwart his agenda.

The retreat means ZTE, a company found guilty of selling U.S. goods to Iran in violation of sanctions, will duck Commerce Department penalties that bar U.S. companies from doing business with it.

U.S. and Chinese officials had said those penalties would effectively put ZTE out of business.

Trump had ordered his own Commerce Department to lift the penalties as part of a broader negotiating strategy with Chinese President Xi Jinping, but senators voted to reimpose them as part of a sweeping defense policy bill they passed last month.

But the House version of the defense bill did not include the same provision. And senators have now decided to leave it out of the final compromise bill. The House language bars U.S. government agencies and contractors from doing business with ZTE, but allows the company to continue doing business with private U.S. firms.

The final version of the defense bill is expected to come to a vote in the House and Senate in coming days.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., blasted the decision Friday. The “chances that a #China controlled telecomm will not just stay in business, but do so here inside the U.S. sadly just went up,” he wrote on Twitter. — The Washington Post