Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Maryland for his remarks and once again for working together in such a constructive fashion. As he said, we have had a number of Senators from both parties sponsoring our amendment. I think that reflects the concern that both Republicans and Democrats alike have about the threat that Chinese telecom companies like Huawei and ZTE pose to our national security and to our citizens' privacy. Our amendment is an important first step to ensure that they are not doing business with the Federal Government or any firms that are relying on U.S. taxpayer dollars and also that ZTE in particular faces the stiffest penalties possible for its recidivist behavior in violating sanctions and lying to U.S. investigators. We still have more to do, and I suspect we will be back together either in the Senate Banking Committee or on the Senate floor to try to protect our citizens' safety and their privacy from companies that are in essence arms of the Chinese Communist Party. We will be working together in the coming months, as this bill moves forward to be reconciled with the House of Representatives, to ensure that this very important language stays in the bill in its final version and then gets passed into the law.”