They had been caught, they paid a fine, but then it turned out that they were deliberately planning to continue selling them, despite already being caught, charged, fined, and agreeing to stop.

The /only/ way that they could be made to stop selling restricted components from the US was clearly to prohibit them from using those components at all.

What do you propose as an alternative?

In the criminal justice system, if you are out on probation after committing a crime and then commit the same crime, you go right back to prison, for longer this time. They've repeated their crime while on probation, and thus get a stiffer sentence.

Besides the libertarian nonsense of "if you don't like ZTE products don't buy them"... well, one of the things they're doing we don't like is violating export bans to Iran and North Korea. For another, as long as they're manufacturing, their products can just get rebranded through a couple of shell companies and wind up in the US anyway.

I am unclear why you think it's so important to not hurt them.