ZTE, one of China’s biggest tech companies, is asking the United States to suspend an order that could cripple its business.
ZTE, one of China’s biggest tech companies, is asking the United States to suspend a ban that threatens to cripple its business.
ZTE ( ZTCOF) said it has submitted a request for the US Commerce Department to put on hold an order forbidding American firms from selling parts and providing services to it.
The Chinese company, which sells smartphones and telecommunications equipment around the world, has found itself caught up in a tense US-China trade fight .
The Commerce Department said it slapped the seven-year export ban on ZTE because the Chinese company lied to American officials about punishing employees who violated US sanctions on North Korea and Iran.
But the crackdown has been widely interpreted as part of a broader push by the United States to stifle China’s tech ambitions.
ZTE is not officially part of the dispute over intellectual property that’s fueling the US-China trade clash, but it “represents the same nexus of tech and national security issues,” Eurasia Group director Evan Medeiros wrote in a research note last week.
