- The White House has revoked the licenses of companies doing business with Chinese technology giant Huawei, Reuters reported on Sunday.
- Huawei has long been a target of the government of President Donald Trump, who sees the firm as spies for the Chinese government.
- Huawei has repeatedly denied that it intends to use its networks to spy.
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President Donald Trump’s government is likely to take the last step in weakening Huawei by revoking the licenses of companies that supply materials to the Chinese technology giant, according to a new Reuters report.
Reuters reports companies, including Intel and Japanese chipmaker Kioxia, will no longer be able to sell to Huawei, citing people familiar with the matter.
The government plans to revoke several dozen more such licenses, Reuters said.
The Trump administration has long viewed Huawei’s dominance in the telecommunications world as a threat to national security.
In May 2019, Trump declared a national state of emergency over the growing intrusion into the U.S. market.
As a result, the company was placed on an “entity list,” meaning U.S. companies could not sell or transfer technology to Huawei without a license issued by the list of the Bureau of Industrial and Security Entities.
In a statement to CNBC at the time, Huawei said: “If Huawei is restricted from doing business in the US, it will not make the US safer or stronger; it will only restrict the US to inferior but more expensive alternatives. lags behind in the implementation of 5G and ultimately harms the interests of US companies and consumers. ‘
The Trump campaign continued its attacks on Huawei, with the president telling Fox in August 2020: ‘We do not want their equipment in the United States because they are spying on us. And any country that uses it, we’re not going to do anything about sharing intelligence. ‘
“Huawei? I call them Spy-Wei. They’re a disaster,” Trump continued.
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On August 17, the Department of Commerce announced that the administration had further restricted technology companies from selling technology manufactured in the U.S. to Huawei – or to any of its subsidiaries – without obtaining a special license.
Trade Minister Wilbur Ross said at the time that the move was made to prevent Huawei from using US technology to “achieve the goals of the Chinese Communist Party”.
“As we restricted its access to U.S. technology, Huawei and its affiliate worked through third parties to harness U.S. technology in a manner that undermined U.S. national security and foreign policy interests,” he continued.
The restriction prevented Huawei from accessing chips that it designed but manufactured by other companies.
The UK has agreed to allow Huawei to build its 5G system in 2019, but turned around in July 2020 due to security issues across China. The UK government bans the purchase of new Huawei 5G equipment after 31 December 2020 and promises to remove all Huawei equipment from 5G networks by 2027.