Following the ZTE U.S ban back in May, President Donald Trump himself had unexpectedly stated on Twitter that he was working on finding a way to lift the ban and get the company back in business. Well, it seems that whatever the Trump administration has done about it worked, because ZTE Corp. has been allowed to resume activities, with an authorization handed to them by the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security.
The authorization is valid from July 2 until August 1 and the company is expected to be in compliance with the U.S demands by August 1, according to Bloomberg.
Initially, the company had been banned from conducting any major activities on U.S soil after it has been revealed that it violated the terms of a 2017 settlement and hired employees that were involved with shipping U.S equipment to Iran and North Korea illegally.
President Trumpo then managed to turn the tides by considering penalties on ZTE as a personal favor to Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Last month, The Commerce Department struck a deal in which ZTE would pay $1.3 billion in penalties in order to resume business with the U.S suppliers. But one of the terms of the agreement would be that ZTE would change management and also provide “high-level security guarantees”.
ZTE Limited Service Authorization / jonathan_skillings / Scribd
This week’s authorization allows ZTE to give support for the ZTE phones that were available to the public on or before April 15, as well as allowing users to make or receive payments for ZTE transactions. In addition, the order also states that it authorizes “the disclosure to ZTE of information regarding security vulnerabilities in items owned, possessed or controlled by ZTE”.
ZTE is rumored to face at least $3 billion in total loses from the ban, which cut off the flow of components for its phones, components coming out from the U.S.
Now, the new management has to start from scratch and rebuild the trust with not only the phone companies but with its customers as well.
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