Bipartisan Senate duo asks White House to investigate ZTE’s work in Venezuela

A bipartisan pair of senators is asking the White House to look into whether the Chinese telecommunications firm ZTE violated U.S. sanctions by helping Venezuela track and monitor its citizens.

In a letter shared with The Hill, Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) write that they are concerned that, by building a database to help Venezuela track its citizens, ZTE “may have violated U.S. export controls and sanctions laws” as well as an agreement between the Commerce Department and ZTE reached earlier this year.

{mosads}The letter was set to be sent to the White House on Wednesday, according to a Reuters report, and follows a Reuters investigation revealing ZTE was helping Venezuela build a database to track its citizens through identification cards.

The letter is addressed to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

The senators in the letter request that the White House find out whether ZTE worked with any Venezuelan officials have been sanctioned by the U.S. and whether ZTE helped Venezuela undermine democratic processes or violate human rights.

The Trump administration earlier this year placed sanctions on several people close to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, including his wife and vice president.

Van Hollen and Rubio are also asking the White House to assess whether ZTE violated U.S. export controls by installing data storage units in Venezuela built by Dell technologies and to assess whether ZTE’s work in Venezuela breached its agreement with the Commerce Department.

That deal lifted a ban on American companies selling to ZTE, but the deal also allowed the Commerce Department to reimpose the ban if ZTE violated terms of the agreement.

Van Hollen and Rubio requested in their letter that the White House respond within 30 days.