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Orlando, FL – U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) appeared on CBS’s Face the Nation this morning to discuss the threat Chinese state-directed telecommunications companies, like Huawei and ZTE, pose to our national security and economic interests.
 
VIDEO: On Face the Nation, Rubio discusses the threat of Chinese telecom companies, Huawei & ZTE

We have to understand, Chinese companies are not like American companies. We can’t even get Apple to crack an iPhone for us in a terrorist investigation. There isn’t a single company in China that doesn’t have to do whatever the government tells them to do. They are legally required to do it, and trust me if they don’t do it, they’ll find a new CEO to run that company, or a new company to take that company’s place. When the Chinese ask a telecoms company, ‘We want you to turn over all the data you’ve gathered in a country you’re operating in,’ they will do it. No court order, nothing like that, they will just do it. They have to. We need to understand that.

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I sure hope so. I hope we do. Because I think both Huawei, ZTE and multiple other Chinese companies pose a threat to our national interests — our national economic interests, and our national security interests. And the Huawei case, what they’re accused of here, what she’s accused of, is violating the Iran sanctions. So at a minimum, we should be doing to them what we did to ZTE when they violated the sanctions law. Which included not having access to American suppliers. And I hope that’s what will happen. That’s what we’re encouraging the administration to do as soon as possible.