President
Donald Trump said in a tweet Sunday that he's working to give
ZTE "a way to get back into business, fast."
ZTE, a
smartphone and telecom equipment maker that does business around the world, announced last week that it has halted its main operations after the Trump administration banned American companies from selling it vital components.
Now, Trump says he's working with President
Xi Jinping of
China to get the company back on its feet.
"Too many jobs in China lost. Commerce Department has been instructed to get it done!" Trump wrote in a tweet Sunday. The US Commerce Department did not immediately respond to multiple requests for comment Sunday.
ZTE's current struggles have made it the most visible consequence thus far of a brewing trade war between the
United States and China.
The Chinese company employs about 75,000 people. It's also the fourth largest provider of smartphones in the United States.
Last month, the Trump administration blocked American firms from selling parts or providing services to ZTE until 2025. The ban was put in place after Washington said ZTE violated a deal struck last year in which ZTE agreed to pay a $1.2 billion fine for violating US sanctions on Iran and North Korea.
ZTE denies it violated the deal and is appealing the export ban. The company warned in April, when the ban was first implemented, that it would "severely impact the survival and development" of ZTE. Experts have since said the company could be circling the drain.
The US crackdown on ZTE has been interpreted by some as part of a broader push by the United States to stifle China's tech ambition.
But ZTE has also long been the target of scrutiny for regulators and officials in the United States, which is wary of its ties to the Chinese government. The company's controlling shareholder is Shenzhen Zhongxingxin Telecommunications Equipment, a Chinese state-owned corporation.
One 2012 congressional report about ZTE and Huawei, another huge Chinese tech company, said the companies "cannot be trusted to be free of foreign state influence and thus pose a security threat to the United States and to our systems."
Adam Schiff, a Democratic congressman from California, responded to Trump's tweet Sunday, saying he "should care more about our national security than Chinese jobs."
"Our intelligence agencies have warned that ZTE technology and phones pose a major cyber security threat," he said.