US Department: ZTE has paid bail and is allowed to trade again

The US Department of Commerce has announced that the Chinese manufacturer has paid the final amount of $ 400 million. As previously agreed, this means that ZTE will again be allowed to trade with American companies.

The ministry reports that the deposit has been placed in escrow with a US bank. For the next ten years, ZTE will be overseen by compliance coordinators who monitor the company’s compliance with US export regulations. The $400 million comes on top of $1 billion that ZTE has already paid to the US. Paying ZTE does not mean that the trade ban is off the table completely, it is a temporary shutdown. The deposit follows soon after the signing of the escrow agreement announced on Thursday.

The imposition of the ban was related to ZTE’s circumvention of US sanctions by supplying Iran. The Chinese company is said to have lost about $3.1 billion in May as a result of the April ban, which banned American companies from supplying ZTE for a period of seven years.

The $1 billion fine combined with the current $400 million bail is the result of a deal with the US government. However, this could still be called into question, because the US Senate wants the deal to be dropped. The Senate wants to reverse the deal with an amended law. The status of that law is uncertain, according to Reuters, and there is a chance that it will not pass.