[orionsbelt]

There are plenty of alternatives. I'm not suggesting the U.S. let ZTE wantonly violate sanctions or that a mere fine is enough to fix things. But there's surely some middle ground. Imagine if the top leadership of Apple had done something similar and sold a few prohibited items to Iran. Why destroy the entirety of Apple over that, most of which is a benign electronics business that employs massive amounts of people? Alternatives could include firing or arresting all of the top leadership, putting in place strong enforcement mechanics to ensure it never happens again (with the assistance and assurance of the State), trades for other things that are desirable for us, etc.

Perhaps the alternatives that the Trump administration will propose are weak and will be a terrible bargain, but that's a different matter than saying we shouldn't even consider alternatives.

[olliej]

The problem was that the fine was not sufficient. Then ban on using American component cam about because it was discovered the ZTE planned to continue selling despite explicitly stating that they wouldn’t, and having already been fined.

The ban that killed ZTE was not a result of them breaking the law. That merely resulted in a fine. The ban came about as a result of ZTE deliberately planning to continue breaking the law after already being caught, charged, fined, and explicitly agreeing to stop. Give. Than background what should have been done?