Lawmakers Take Aim at Chinese Tech Firms

Bipartisan groups introduce amendment to scuttle Trump’s deal with ZTE, scrutinize Huawei’s ties to Google
By Siobhan Hughes, Kate O’Keeffe and John D. McKinnon

The deal that the Trump administration announced Thursday with China’s ZTE Corp. was immediately opposed by a bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers as a threat to national security. 

WASHINGTON—Lawmakers in Congress lost a battle over ZTE Corp. when the Trump administration announced a deal Thursday to resuscitate the Chinese telecommunications giant, but they made it clear their war against Chinese technology companies is far from over.
Hours after the Commerce Department announced a deal that would prevent ZTE’s collapse by allowing it to resume buying components from U.S. suppliers, a bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced an amendment to a must-pass bill in an effort to undo the deal.
Members of Congress have also begun scrutinizing Google’s relationship with China’s Huawei Technologies Co. 

A group of lawmakers that includes some of the biggest critics of Huawei—Sens. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) and Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) and Reps. Mike Conaway (R., Texas) and Robert Pittenger (R., N.C.)—is looking at Google’s operating-system partnership with Huawei.
Sen. Mark Warner (D.,Va.) issued his own open letter early Thursday to Google parent Alphabet Inc. and Twitter Inc., asking for information about any data-sharing agreements between the two companies and Chinese vendors. 

He also asked for information from Alphabet about separate partnerships with Chinese phone maker Xiaomi Corp. and Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings Ltd.
The effort to reverse the ZTE deal marks the second time this week that the Republican-led Senate has threatened direct confrontation with Donald Trump over a signature policy issue.
A group of senators is also seeking to undo tariffs that Trump recently imposed on aluminum and steel imports from Canada, the European and Mexico. 

They have taken a dispute that was a war of words into the more serious realm of legislation that could handcuff the president.
Trump has made trade, and particularly fixing what he views as an unfair global trading system, a centerpiece of his agenda. 

That has entailed confronting both China and close allies, and threatening tariffs on a range of goods. When Trump last month said he was planning to reverse the penalties on ZTE, as the administration was pushing Beijing to commit to buy more U.S. exports, lawmakers from both parties accused him of conflating trade and national-security issues. 

The administration denies that.
While some Republicans have shied away from confronting Trump over his trade agenda, they appeared more prepared on Thursday to challenge the deal with ZTE, where national- security issues are more clear-cut. 

U.S. officials have warned for years that the telecom firm’s equipment, along with equipment made by rival Huawei, could be used to spy on Americans.
In mid-April, the U.S. banned exports to ZTE as punishment for the Chinese company breaking the terms of a settlement to resolve its sanctions-busting sales to North Korea and Iran. 

The penalty, which the Commerce Department said Thursday it would now lift as part of a new deal, amounted to a death knell for ZTE.
Backers of the ZTE amendment introduced Thursday, led by Mr. Cotton along with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) and Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D., Md.), are hoping to attach it to the National Defense Authorization Act, which could get a vote as soon as next week. 

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) hasn’t said whether he expects the amendment to go to a vote, or whether it could make it into the package by other means.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), who urged his colleagues to back off their effort to void Trump’s aluminum and steel tariffs after meeting with the president this week, said he wasn’t yet comfortable with the ZTE deal.
“I don’t know,” Mr. Graham said. 

“I want to give the president as much latitude as we can to negotiate with China and get a good deal with North Korea. Our intelligence community is very concerned. I want to know from them: do these changes alleviate their concerns?” he said.
The Commerce Department agreement announced Thursday requires ZTE to pay a $1 billion fine and allow U.S. enforcement officers inside the Chinese company to monitor its actions. 

In exchange, it allows ZTE to resume buying components from U.S. suppliers that it needs to make smartphones and build telecoms networks.
“I’m not comfortable yet,” said Sen. Roy Blunt (R., Mo.), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee who has declined to back an effort to subject Trump’s metals tariffs to congressional approval. 

“I want to know more about the U.S. presence inside the company and why we should believe that that creates a level of assurance that we need to have about their capacity to do things that we wouldn’t want to have them do.”
The amendment introduced by lawmakers on Thursday would also prohibit U.S. government agencies from purchasing or leasing telecom equipment or services from ZTE or Huawei, and ban the U.S. from subsidizing those firms with grants or loans.
A ZTE spokeswoman didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The fight over ZTE between Trump administration officials and China hawks in Congress began last month. 

Just weeks after the Commerce Department had banned U.S. companies from selling to ZTE, Trump suggested he was considering reversing the penalty. 

He tweeted May 13 that he and Chinese dictator Xi Jinping were “working together to give massive Chinese phone company, ZTE, a way to get back into business, fast.” 

He added: “Too many jobs in China lost. Commerce Department has been instructed to get it done!”

The tweet incensed many members of Congress, as well as intelligence and military officials, who moved swiftly to denounce any prospect of a reprieve through a series of legislative actions and an aggressive publicity campaign.
The debate over ZTE in Congress likely will have ramifications for the fall elections, as well as for trade policy. 

Polling has suggested that voters remain wary of China, a fear that Trump is tapping with his get-tough rhetoric.
The Wall Street Journal/NBC poll in April found that most U.S. voters view China as an adversary rather than an ally. 

Fear of China is especially intense among Trump supporters. 

But it is also substantial among older voters, whites and Republicans in general.
In private meetings with GOP senators this week, Trump argued in favor of reaching a deal with ZTE, which his administration struck after the president personally negotiated with Xi. 

The White House has also argued that if ZTE goes out of business, it will simply be absorbed by Huawei, lawmakers said, leaving the U.S. without protections included in the deal, such as the installation of Chinese-speaking American enforcement officers inside the company to monitor its actions.
That carried little weight with Mr. Rubio, who co-sponsored Thursday’s amendment and who has been among the most vocal members of Congress on the issue. 

“If Huawei is an even bigger problem than ZTE, we shouldn’t be selling them semiconductors either,” he said.
Lawmakers said the administration’s handling of the ZTE issue was evidence of dysfunctional trade policies. 

In a speech on the Senate floor Thursday, Mr. Schumer said: “Trump has directed far too much of the administration’s energies on trade toward punishing our allies, like Canada and Europe, instead of focusing on the real menace, the No. 1 menace: China.” 

Mr. Schumer was referencing Trump’s decision last week to impose tariffs on America’s closest allies.
While the ZTE drama unfolded Thursday, lawmakers’ ramped-up scrutiny of Google’s deal with Huawei represented another front in the offensive against Chinese tech companies: data sharing. 

Trump administration officials and lawmakers had earlier largely limited their actions to trying to reduce ZTE’s and Huawei’s U.S. footprints. 

Now, members of Congress appear more willing to examine partnerships between U.S. firms and the two companies that have nothing to do with U.S. sales.
A representative for Huawei wasn’t immediately available to comment.
A Google spokesman said in a statement the company looks forward to answering lawmakers’ questions, adding: “We do not provide special access to Google user data as part of these agreements, and our agreements include privacy and security protections for user data.”
Derek Scissors, a China scholar at American Enterprise Institute, said the ZTE deal makes little sense if U.S. policy goals are to both keep Chinese firms out of the U.S. telecom network and keep them from getting access to Americans’ personal data.
“If we don’t trust Chinese telecommunications firms, why are we helping them become more capable?” he said.