Trump Administration Will Allow Some Companies to Sell to Huawei

The Trump administration is following through with plans to allow American companies to continue doing business with Huawei, the Chinese telecom equipment giant, just weeks after placing the company on a Commerce Department blacklist. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said the administration will issue licenses for American companies that want to do business with Huawei “where there is no threat to national security.” And another top official suggested the move would allow chip makers to continue selling certain technology to Huawei. 

Secretary Ross said the administration would continue efforts to protect America’s development of advanced technologies, including potentially curbing the ability of other countries to buy sensitive technology. He said the administration was updating its export control policies to reflect a “fusion” between China’s military and its civilian businesses, which Sec Ross called a threat to America. And he warned companies not to sacrifice intellectual property and other trade secrets in order to gain access to growing markets like China. “The future prosperity of the United States depends on our strategic advantage in advanced technologies,” Sec Ross said. “It is wrong to trade sensitive I.P. or source codes for access to a foreign market,” he said, “no matter how lucrative that market might be.”  “If new export controls seem necessary, the department seeks public input and strives for multilateral agreements, so that important controls are universally adopted,” he said. Sec Ross said that the department would soon announce members of an “emerging technology technical advisory committee to help review those technologies,” whose members would be announced shortly, and who would help “modernize” the department’s export control list.