President Trump’s measures to help ZTE get back in business are based on flawed logic. They suggest that steel and aluminum is more crucial to America’s national security than semiconductor chips, which are extremely pervasive globally and used in modern warfare. This is absurd, Patrick Mendis and Joey Wang argue.

The ZTE crisis has shocked China by revealing its vulnerability to foreign countries in advanced technologies. Even though the U.S. is fully justified to punish a Chinese company for violating the rules, it should take into account that if it is perceived as exploiting China's dependence, it could face further difficulties in making progress in other fields, such as reducing China's market barriers.

The US took advantage of ZTE’s inability to find substitute suppliers and imposed the ban. It is not a simple punishment, but an attempt to deal a fatal blow to ZTE.

China’s long-term focus on the direction of its tech market gives it a clear edge over the United States in the latest tech tussle between the two countries: a ban announced by the U.S. government earlier this month forbidding any U.S. companies from selling any parts or software to Chinese telecom company ZTE.

In March, two leading members of the Trump administration announced that China’s ZTE Corporation would pay the largest criminal fine in U.S. sanctions history. As long as North Korea’s military program tops the U.S. foreign policy agenda with China, economic sanctions aimed at punishing Chinese corporations may take a back seat to reaching a goal of increased Chinese pressure on the North Korean regime.

The U.S. Commerce Department has accused two of China’s largest telecom providers for violating sanctions by selling American technology to Iran, North Korea, Cuba, and Sudan. If Huawei and ZTE want to find a more receptive environment in U.S. markets, they may have to choose between following Chinese government desires to aid friendly nations, or complying with U.S. objections to its actions in controversial markets.

Reportedly, an internal EU analysis has led European officials to weigh steps over Chinese vendors Huawei and ZTE. An unmanaged friction has the potential to escalate into trade friction between the EU and China.

The US House Intelligence Committee released a report blocking Huawei and ZTE's access to the US market sales and M&A. Coincidently, Softbank, Japan, acquir