Political Quotes

“I will be brief in closing. I note that the manager of this needs to get through some things to get to our vote. There are three quick points I want to make. The first thing is that the Chinese have learned how to work our system and how to play us. They know, for example, that they can just go to American companies, go to Washington, go to the White House, go to Congress, and tell them how bad this is for you, and you will get them to change their minds or they just hire lobbyists, as the Senator from Maryland outlined. One company involved here was Qualcomm. They are the largest seller of chips to ZTE. They were involved in saying: Don't do this. Obviously, they were a customer, they didn't want to lose this customer. Qualcomm had a deal pending in China to purchase a Dutch company. I believe the understanding was if you allow ZTE to survive, not only do you get to keep this company as a customer, but you will probably help yourself get that deal in China with the Dutch company purchase. Guess what. On the day after it was announced that the conference committee had dropped this provision, Qualcomm announced it was dropping its pursuit of that deal in China because they couldn't make headway. The Chinese Government doesn't play. They got ZTE to stay alive, and they still blocked the deal. The second point is this issue: They are a cell phone maker, but the hand-held devices they make are the least problematic part of this.…”