Chinese technology company ZTE Corp will be "shut down" in the United States if it engages in one more bad activity, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro has warned.
"The President did this as a personal favour to the President of China as a way of showing some goodwill for bigger efforts such as the one here in Singapore," Navarro told Fox on Sunday, referring to Tuesday's summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un.
He added that ZTE was a "bad actor" but that the deal included safeguards, such as requiring the company to retain a compliance team selected by the Commerce Department for 10 years. The company already has a US court-appointed monitor.
ZTE last week agreed to pay a $1 billion fine[1] to the US and to overhaul its leadership in order to end a crippling ban on the Shenzhen-headquartered firm from buying parts from US suppliers and allowing it to get back into business.
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said the fine was on top of the approximately $1 billion ZTE has already paid for selling equipment to North Korea and Iran, in violation of US sanctions. Ross added the compliance team and senior leadership changes need to be in place within 30 days.
The ban, which traces back to a breach of the US embargo on trade with Iran, had prevented China's second-largest telecoms equipment maker by revenue from buying the US components it relies on to make phones and other devices.
The intial period of the ban was for seven years, after the commerce department concluded that ZTE deceived US regulators.
"ZTE misled the Department of Commerce. Instead of reprimanding ZTE staff and senior management, ZTE