United States President Donald Trump on Friday said that he has struck a deal with Chinese President Xi Jinping to ease the United States sanctions imposed on Chinese telecommunications company ZTE.
The Commerce Department last month had blocked China's ZTE from importing American components for seven years, accusing it of misleading U.S. regulators, after it had settled charges of violating sanctions against Iran and North Korea, Fox News reported.
The Trump administration, however, sparked a controversy by putting ZTE in play amid trade negotiations.
According to Trump, Xi recently called him to ask if there was something he could do to put the company back in business, according to Fox News.
Trump asked Xi what he was prepared to do, the president said -- and Xi replied that he was willing to have ZTE pay a fine of USD 500 million dollars for the embargo violations, change the management and replace the board.
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The United States President then countered with a fine of USD 1.5 billion, the management and board swaps, security guarantees and a guarantee that ZTE would buy a large percentage of its parts from U.S. companies, Trump told Fox News.
After further negotiations, they settled at a USD 1.3 billion fine, Trump said.
Trump, meanwhile asserted that his handling of ZTE shows that he is prepared to be tough on China and Chinese companies, whenever they misbehave.
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