Political Quotes

“Madam President, I concur entirely with the comments of my colleagues about the dangers and challenges presented by China in many different dimensions. I am not going to try to defend President Trump's decision to overrule his administration's penalties on ZTE for violating our sanctions, but the President's actions created facts on the ground. One of the principal facts was that part of that arrangement was a billion- dollar payment by the Chinese Government to the United States Treasury, creating for the conferees the issue of trying to find a billion-dollar offset if we reimpose this penalty. That billion-dollar offset could come only from military programs of our jurisdiction, end strength of the military, platforms we might acquire; we found it difficult to work our way through that issue. More important, I think, is the notion that we did not simply drop this issue. In fact, we imposed, by legislation, a government-wide prohibition on the acquisition of ZTE and Huawei products going forward. It is now the law that we prohibit the Federal Government and government contractors from buying or using or providing grants and loans to entities buying or using telecommunications equipment and services provided by the Chinese companies, ZTE and Huawei. Huawei is not ignored here. It is legislatively a prohibition in the bill for future purchases. We understand, also, that there are some Chinese companies in the video surveillance equipment business that also are threats.…”