WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration told lawmakers the U.S. government has reached a deal to put Chinese telecommunications company ZTE Corp back in business after it pays a significant fine and makes management changes, a senior congressional aide said on Friday. 
 
 U.S. President Donald Trump appeared to confirm the deal in a tweet late on Friday. “I closed it down then let it reopen with high level security guarantees, change of management and board, must purchase U.S. parts and pay a $1.3 Billion fine.” 
 
 The reported deal involving China’s second-largest telecommunications equipment maker ran into immediate resistance in Congress, where Democrats and Trump’s fellow Republicans accused him of bending to pressure from Beijing to ease up on a company that U.S. intelligence officials have suggested poses a significant risk to U.S. national security. 
 
 ZTE was banned in April from buying U.S. technology components for seven years for breaking an agreement reached after it violated U.S. sanctions against Iran and North Korea.. After ZTE makes a series of changes it would now be allowed to resume business with U.S. companies, including chipmaker Qualcomm Inc. 
 
 The deal, earlier communicated to officials on Capitol Hill by the Commerce Department, requires ZTE to pay a substantial fine, place U.S. compliance officers at the company and change its management team, the aide said. 
 
 The Commerce Department would then lift an order issued in April preventing ZTE from buying U.S. products. ZTE shut down most of its production after the ruling was announced. 
 
 Fox News said Trump told them on Thursday that he had negotiated the $1.3 billion fine with Chinese President Xi Jinping in a phone call. 
 
 ZTE, which is publicly traded but whose largest shareholder is a Chinese state-owned enterprise, agreed last year to pay a nearly $900 million penalty and open its books to a U.S. monitor. The penalty stemmed from for breaking an agreement after it was caught illegally shipping U.S. goods to Iran and North Korea, in an investigation dating to the Obama administration. 
 
 The company has lost over $3 billion since the April 15th ban on doing business with U.S. suppliers, according to a source familiar with the matter. 
 
 Trump on Tuesday floated a plan to fine ZTE up to $1.3 billion and shake up its management as his administration considered rolling back more severe penalties that have crippled the company. 
 
 Responding to news of the administration’s deal with ZTE, Republican Senator Marco Rubio tweeted: “Yes they have a deal in mind. It is a great deal ... for #ZTE & China. #China crushes U.S. companies with no mercy & they use these telecom companies to spy & steal from us.” 
 
 Rubio, as well as Democratic Senators Chuck Schumer and Chris Van Hollen, said Congress should act to stop Trump from letting ZTE get back into business. “If the administration goes through with this reported deal, President Trump would be helping make China great again,” Schumer said Friday on Twitter. “Would be a huge victory for President Xi, and a dramatic retreat by Pres Trump. Both parties in Congress should come together to stop this deal in its tracks.” 
 
 U.S. intelligence and U.S. law enforcement agencies have serious concerns that ZTE and other Chinese telecommunications firms use their equipment to gather intelligence on U.S. citizens. 
 
 The U.S. Department of Defense has also stopped selling ZTE’s mobile phones and modems in stores on its military bases, citing potential security risks. 
 
 William Evanina, the acting director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, said at his May 15 confirmation hearing that he would not use a ZTE phone nor recommend that anyone in a sensitive position in government use one. 
 
 Chinese officials sought a pullback on ZTE as part of any broader deal to prevent a trade war between the world’s two biggest economies. U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross is scheduled to visit China next week for another round of talks. White House legislative director Marc Short told PBS Friday that Ross “would be making that announcement in the coming day” of a resolution of the ZTE issue. 
 
 ZTE needs U.S. components for its mobile phones and network equipment. U.S. companies provide an estimated 25 percent to 30 percent of components in ZTE’s equipment. 
 
 FILE PHOTO - Visitors pass in front of the Chinese telecoms equipment group ZTE Corp booth at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, February 26, 2018. REUTERS/Yves Herman/File Picture 
 
 As part of the agreements ZTE made last year it dismissed four senior employees. 
 
 Shares of ZTE’s U.S. suppliers traded higher on Friday. Optical networking equipment maker Acacia Communications Inc, which got 30 percent of 2017 revenue from ZTE, rose 4.4 percent. Optical component company Oclaro Inc, which received 18 percent of its fiscal 2017 revenue from ZTE, rose 2.7 percent. 
 
 Reuters reported earlier this week citing sources that a proposed trade deal with China would lift the ZTE ban. In return, China would eliminate tariffs on U.S. agriculture or agree to buy more farm products from the United States. ||||| The amendment language “prohibits the federal government from doing business with ZTE or Huawei or other Chinese telecom companies" and puts the company back on the sanctions list and "holds ZTE accountable for violating their previous commitment." | Getty Senate will try to reverse ZTE deal via a must-pass defense bill 
 
 Senate leaders agreed Monday to include language in the annual defense spending bill that would reverse the Trump administration's decision to save Chinese telecommunications company ZTE after it was caught violating the terms of a 2017 penalty agreement by making illegal sales to Iran and North Korea. 
 
 The move is a rebuke to President Donald Trump on the eve on his summit meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, after Trump had pledged to China’s leader that he would try to save the state-controlled company from a crippling sanction. The language will be part of an amendment in the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act, a $716 billion defense policy bill, H.R. 5515 (115). 
 
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 “By including this provision to undo the ZTE deal in the defense bill, the Senate is saying loudly and in a bipartisan fashion that the president is dead wrong to back off on ZTE," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement. "The fact that a bipartisan group of senators came together this quickly is a testament to how bad the Trump administration's ZTE deal is and how we will not shy away from holding the president's feet to the fire when it comes to keeping his promise to be tough on China." 
 
 "Great news! Our bipartisan amendment restoring penalties on #ZTE is included in the #NDAA bill the Senate will be advancing to later this evening," Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) added on Twitter. 
 
 Great news! Our bipartisan amendment restoring penalties on #ZTE is included in the #NDAA bill the Senate will be advancing to later this evening. — Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) June 11, 2018 
 
 The action came just days after Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross announced that the administration had reached a deal with ZTE that would allow it continue to operate. Ross met with the senators late Monday afternoon to brief them on the new settlement. 
 
 In April, Ross had initially imposed a seven-year ban on the company from doing business with American firms after it was caught violating the terms of its 2017 penalty agreement. However, at the request of Chinese President Xi Jinping, who feared the original penalty would put ZTE out of business, Trump directed Ross to come up with another option. 
 
 That came last week, when Ross announced ZTE had agreed to pay an additional $1 billion fine, change its management team and add a new team of sanctions compliance officers chosen by the United States in exchange for the ban being lifted. Ross also said the Trump administration had not received any commitments from China in return. 
 
 "I and obviously every other senator believes the death penalty is the appropriate punishment for their behavior," Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) told reporters after Ross briefed senators on the department's latest ZTE action. "They’re a repeat bad actor that should be put out of business. For eight years, ZTE was able to run wild and be able to become the fourth-largest telecom company in the world." 
 
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 If the Senate amendment becomes law, "I would expect there wouldn't be a ZTE," Cotton added. 
 
 Ross did not try to talk senators out of the amendment nor did he seem displeased during Monday's classified briefing, Cotton said. 
 
 The Arkansas Republican added that he did not believe Trump would veto the legislation because of its many other priorities. The ZTE provision is part of a broader package of "manager's amendments" that will be added to the defense deal at the start of debate. 
 
 “I’ll be voting for the amendment,” Sen. John Cornyn, the No. 2 Republican, told reporters after the briefing. “It really is based out of the concerns that China is using communications companies as a means to conduct espionage.” 
 
 Not every lawmaker emerging from the briefing came away committed to Cotton’s amendment. 
 
 Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who chairs the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, declined to say whether he would support the language. “One side of the equation,” Johnson said of the briefing. “We need more information from the intelligence community.” 
 
 But Sen. John Thune, the No. 3 Republican in the chamber, described his colleagues as “being very cautious” on how they approach ZTE and that including the amendment in the manager’s package reflects confidence in its congressional backing. 
 
 “I suspect there was enough support for what they’re trying to do here,” Thune said. 
 
 On Monday, the Senate overwhelmingly voted to formally start debate on its version of the fiscal 2019 National Defense Authorization Act after several early setbacks. 
 
 The House has already finished work on its version and the two bodies will have to work out any differences before sending the final package to Trump for his signature. 
 
 If the Senate amendment becomes law, it would automatically reinstate the seven-year prohibition until Trump has certified to Congress that ZTE has met certain conditions. It also would ban all U.S. government agencies from purchasing or leasing telecommunications equipment and/or services from ZTE, a second Chinese telecommunications firm, Huawei, or any subsidiaries or affiliates of those two companies. 
 
 The amendment language “prohibits the federal government from doing business with ZTE or Huawei or other Chinese telecom companies" and puts the company back on the sanctions list and "holds ZTE accountable for violating their previous commitment," Cotton said. 
 
 Connor O’Brien contributed to this report. ||||| Although top senators, including Democrat Chuck Schumer and Republican Marco Rubio, are urging the administration not to bend on ZTE, President Trump is planning to ease penalties on the Chinese telecommunications giant for violating sanctions against Iran and North Korea. 
 
 But what Mr. Trump may not realize is that ZTE is also one of the world’s most notorious intellectual property thieves — perhaps even the most notorious of all. And since stopping Chinese theft of U.S intellectual property is supposed to be one of the President’s top trade objectives, he should not ease up on ZTE until it stops its high-tech banditry and starts playing by the rules in intellectual property (IP) matters. 
 
 To get a sense of just how egregious ZTE’s behavior truly is, we need only to consult PACER, the national index of federal court cases. A search of PACER reveals that in the U.S. alone, ZTE has been sued for patent infringement an astonishing 126 times just in the last five years. This number is even more shocking when you consider that only a subset of companies who believe their IP rights have been violated by ZTE has the means or the will to spend the millions of dollars needed to wage a multi-year lawsuit in federal courts. 
 
 But ZTE’s IP thievery is not confined just to the United States. According to one Chinese tech publication, ZTE has also been sued for patent infringement an additional 100 times in China, Germany, Norway, the Netherlands, India, France, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and other countries. As an intellectual property renegade, ZTE certainly gets around. 
 
 Even when it’s not being sued, ZTE thumbs its nose at the traditional rules of fair play in intellectual proper matters, commonly engaging in delay, misrepresentation, and hold out when dealing with patent owners. While ZTE is more than happy to accept royalty payments for the use of its own intellectual property, it rarely if ever pays for the use of others’ IP. 
 
 Consider ZTE’s treatment of San Francisco-based Via Licensing Corp, a Swiss-neutral operator of patent pools covering wireless, digital audio, and other building-block components of complex products. Patent pools offer one-stop shopping for product makers to acquire licenses to patents from multiple innovative companies at once. Pools are generally a more efficient, and less litigious, way for product makers to acquire the IP rights they need at reasonable prices. 
 
 In 2012, ZTE joined Via’s LTE wireless patent pool, whose members also include Google, AT&T, Verizon, Siemens, China Mobile, and another Chinese tech powerhouse, Lenovo, maker of Motorola-branded smartphones. It helped set the royalty pricing of the pool’s aggregated patent rights, and even received payments from other product makers for their use of ZTE’s own patents within the pool. 
 
 But in 2017, precisely when it was ZTE’s turn to pay for its use of other members’ patents in Via’s LTE pool, it suddenly and without ceremony quit the patent pool. Via and its member companies are still trying to get ZTE to pay for its use of their intellectual property — and to abide by the very rules it helped establish in the first place. 
 
 Even among much-criticized Chinese companies, ZTE’s behavior is completely outside the norm. Despite what you may hear, some Chinese companies are actually good IP citizens — Lenovo for one. In fact, Via’s various patent pools include more than two dozen Chinese companies who play by the rules. 
 
 But ZTE is not one of them. It is a blatant serial IP violator who gives other Chinese companies a bad name. And our government should not reward such behavior. 
 
 Ease sanctions on ZTE only when it finally starts respecting intellectual property rights. ||||| WASHINGTON/BEIJING (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump pledged on Sunday to help ZTE Corp “get back into business, fast” after a U.S. ban crippled the Chinese technology company, offering a job-saving concession to Beijing ahead of high-stakes trade talks this week. 
 
 Trump’s unexpected announcement was a stunning reversal, given Washington’s tough stance on Chinese trade practices that have put the world’s two largest economies on course for a possible trade war. 
 
 Sources briefed on the matter said Beijing had demanded the ZTE issue be resolved as a prerequisite for broader trade negotiations. 
 
 “Too many jobs in China lost. Commerce Department has been instructed to get it done!” Trump wrote on Twitter, saying he and Chinese President Xi Jinping were working together on a solution for ZTE. 
 
 The U.S. Commerce Department last month banned American companies from selling to the firm for seven years as punishment for ZTE breaking a 2017 agreement after it was caught illegally shipping U.S. goods to Iran and North Korea, an investigation dating to the Obama administration. 
 
 The penalty cut off ZTE’s access to key components such as semiconductors, prompting China’s second-largest maker of telecommunications equipment to say last week that it had suspended its main operations. 
 
 During trade talks in Beijing earlier this month, Chinese Vice Premier Liu He told U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin that China would not continue talks on broader bilateral trade disputes unless Washington agreed to ease the crushing sanctions on ZTE, two people briefed on those meetings said. 
 
 “The message was, ‘we have to deal with ZTE before we continue talks’,” one of the people said. 
 
 Both sources, who declined to be identified given the sensitivity of the matter, said China was willing in principle to import more U.S. agriculture products in return for Washington smoothing out penalties against ZTE, but they did not offer details. 
 
 Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a regularly scheduled news briefing on Monday that China “greatly appreciates the positive U.S. position on the ZTE issue”. 
 
 He said that Liu would travel to Washington from Tuesday to Saturday to continue trade talks. 
 
 For U.S. chipmaker Qualcomm Inc, which has seen its $44 billion takeover of NXP Semiconductors delayed by a lengthy antitrust review by China’s Ministry of Commerce, reconsideration of the ZTE penalty could smooth the way for the deal to move forward. 
 
 Bloomberg reported on Monday that China’s Commerce Ministry had been asked to speed up the review of the deal and Qualcomm’s proposed remedies to protect local companies, after previously shelving the review process amid the trade tensions. It cited people familiar with the matter as its sources. Bloomberg did not say who had asked the ministry to speed up the review. 
 
 NXP’s shares rose more than 10 percent in pre-market trade in the U.S. on Tuesday, while Qualcomm gained more than 2 percent. 
 
 LINKED TO THE TRADE DISPUTE 
 
 Within the Commerce Department, and in U.S. business circles, the U.S. penalty against ZTE was widely seen as based on clear evidence of a company knowingly flouting U.S. regulations - separate from the highly politicized trade row, the sources said. 
 
 But Trump’s reversal surprised and frustrated many U.S. officials, who had viewed the penalty on ZTE as final and not open to appeal, the sources said. 
 
 “Everyone has been explicitly saying this is not part of the trade conflict. And now the President has overtly linked it to the trade dispute for better or worse, and that is not good if you’re trying to maintain credibility,” the second source told Reuters. 
 
 ZTE, whose shares remain suspended, did not have immediate comment. 
 
 The U.S. Commerce Department did not have immediate comment and China’s Commerce Ministry did not reply to a request for comment. 
 
 White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters confirmed that U.S. officials were in contact with Beijing about ZTE. She said Trump’s tweet underscored the importance of “free, fair, balanced and mutually beneficial” relations between the United States and China on issues involving the economy, trade and investment. 
 
 Trump expects Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross “to exercise his independent judgment, consistent with applicable laws and regulations, to resolve the regulatory action involving ZTE based on its facts,” Walters said. 
 
 FILE PHOTO: The logo of ZTE Corp is seen on its building in Beijing, China April 19, 2018. REUTERS/Stringer 
 
 Washington and Beijing have proposed tens of billions of dollars in tariffs in recent weeks, fanning worries of a full-blown trade war that could hurt global supply chains and dent business investment plans. 
 
 In a second tweet on Sunday, Trump said past U.S. trade talks with China posed a hurdle that he predicted the two countries would overcome. 
 
 “China and the United States are working well together on trade, but past negotiations have been so one sided in favor of China, for so many years, that it is hard for them to make a deal that benefits both countries,” Trump wrote on Twitter. 
 
 “But be cool, it will all work out!” he added. 
 
 Shortly after Trump’s tweet, a Democratic lawmaker, Representative Adam Schiff, on Twitter questioned the move to help the Chinese company, given numerous warnings about ZTE’s alleged threat to U.S. national security. 
 
 “Our intelligence agencies have warned that ZTE technology and phones pose a major cyber security threat,” Schiff said. “You should care more about our national security than Chinese jobs.” 
 
 SHOCKING BLOW 
 
 It was not clear China would accept Trump’s assertion that Beijing needs to work toward a mutually beneficial outcome. 
 
 “The U.S. should be aware that it must become more cooperative and constructive in the trade talks with China,” the China Daily, China’s official English-language newspaper, said in a Monday editorial. The editorial did not mention ZTE. 
 
 Trump’s comments on ZTE could have a significant impact on shares of American optical components makers such as Acacia Communications Inc and Oclaro Inc, which fell when U.S. companies were banned from exporting goods to ZTE. 
 
 ZTE paid over $2.3 billion to 211 U.S. exporters in 2017, a senior ZTE official said on Friday. 
 
 The U.S. government launched an investigation into ZTE after Reuters reported in 2012 the company had signed contracts to ship hardware and software worth millions of dollars to Iran from some of the best-known U.S. technology companies. (Reuters report that exposed the practice. 
 
 FILE PHOTO: A ZTE smart phone is pictured in this illustration taken April 17, 2018. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri/Illustration/File Photo 
 
 ZTE relies on U.S. companies such as Qualcomm Inc, Intel Corp and Alphabet Inc’s Google. American companies are estimated to provide 25 percent to 30 percent of components in ZTE’s equipment, which includes smartphones and gear to build telecommunications networks. 
 
 Claire Reade, a Washington-based trade lawyer and former assistant U.S. Trade Representative for China affairs, said the ZTE ban may have caused more alarm in Beijing than Trump’s threats to impose tariffs on $50 billion in Chinese goods. 
 
 “Imagine how the United States would feel if China had the power to crush one of our major corporations and make it go out of business,” Reade said. ||||| June 12 (UPI) -- The Senate adopted a measure Tuesday to block President Donald Trump's deal to lift sanctions from Chinese telecom company ZTE. 
 
 A bipartisan amendment was added to the National Defense Authorization Act that reinstitutes penalties against ZTE for violating U.S. sanctions against exporting to Iran and North Korea, and bans U.S. government agencies from purchasing any of the company's devices or services. 
 
 "It's only prudent that no one in the federal government use their equipment or services and that they receive no taxpayer dollars," Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said. "Given their repeated violations of U.S. law, we cannot trust them to respect U.S. national security, and so it's vital we hold them accountable and pass this amendment." 
 
 In February, U.S. intelligence officials warned Americans not to use smartphones made by ZTE or Huawei -- another Chinese telecom company -- as the communication technology could be compromised "to gain positions of power inside our telecommunication networks that provides the capacity to exert pressure or control over our telecommunications infrastructure." 
 
 ZTE halted most of its operations in May after the Trump administration blocked U.S. firms from selling or providing services to the telecom giant, but U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said last week that the company and the United States had reached a deal after Trump pledged to help the company get back into business. 
 
 The deal implemented a $1 billion penalty against ZTE and required the addition of a U.S.-chosen compliance team to monitor the company. It also required ZTE to change its board of directors and executive team within 30 days. 
 
 Cotton suggested if the bill is passed by the Senate and signed by Trump, the amendment would likely force ZTE out of business by blocking the deal. 
 
 "ZTE said they couldn't remain in business, or at least not remain anything other than a cellphone hand-held business, if the denial order from March was in effect. And this would essentially put the denial order back into effect," he said. 
 
 Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said the inclusion of the amendment was an agreement by a bipartisan group of Senators that Trump was "dead wrong to back off on ZTE." 
 
 "The fact that a bipartisan group of senators came together this quickly is a testament to how bad the Trump administration's ZTE deal is and how we will not shy away from holding the president's feet to the fire when it comes to keeping his promise to be tough on China," Schumer said.
– Well, ZTE is back in business—sort of. Washington will drop sanctions against the Chinese telecommunications giant if it makes management changes and pays a big fine, a Congressional aide tells Reuters. President Trump tweeted more, saying that "I closed it down then let it reopen with high level security guarantees, change of management and board, must purchase U.S. parts and pay a $1.3 Billion fine." But he's taking political fire from Democrats and Republicans alike for dealing with a company that many consider a national security threat. "President Trump would be helping make China great again," says Sen. Charles Schumer, per the Washington Post. "Simply a fine and changing board members would not protect America’s economic or national security." Sen. Marco Rubio struck a similar note, tweeting that "#China crushes U.S. companies with no mercy & they use these telecomm companies to spy & steal from us." (TechCrunch goes into detail, saying that over the past 5 years ZTE has been sued an "astonishing" 126 times in the US alone for patent infringement—not to mention that it violated sanctions by selling to North Korea and Iran and then lied about it.) But Trump was under pressure, with Beijing demanding mercy for ZTE in order to resume China-US trade talks on June 2, the Financial Times reports. So does Congress have a veto-proof majority to prevent Trump's move? "Passing such a law could be difficult," says the Post, though lawmakers may pull other political levers to try influencing the White House. (See Trump's defense of easing ZTE sanctions.)