Two days before Donald Trump stepped down as president of the United States, his administration informed Huawei's North American suppliers, such as Intel, that it would revoke the licenses for them to sell components to the Chinese company. At the same time, Washington is not going to grant more licenses, advances Reuters this Monday, January 18.
In an e-mail, quoted by the news agency, the United States Department of Commerce notified a company, stating intentions to "deny a significant number of export license requests to Huawei and the revocation of at least one previously issued license" . Now, Reuters writes that there was not only one revocation, but several.
Despite being at the White House's exit door - President-elect Joe Biden takes office on January 20 - Donald Trump remains committed to weakening Huawei, the largest telecommunications equipment maker, as he considers the company to be a threat to US security.
Huawei did not react to the notifications sent by the Trump administration to the company's North American suppliers. The United States Department of Commerce has made it known that it is working to respect and apply US licensing policies, "safeguarding US national security and foreign policy interests."
Huawei's North American suppliers notified have 20 days to respond. The Commerce department has 45 days to notify them either of any decision changes or of a final decision. After these 45 days, the notified companies would have another 45 days to appeal the decision.
According to Reuters, before the decision the Trump administration had 150 licenses pending decision, whose value amounted to almost one hundred billion euros. To these are added a set of requirements, worth more than 230 billion euros, for licenses, and it is now very likely that applications will be rejected.
Huawei has been on the so-called "black list" of the Commerce department since May 2019. A year later, the United States determined that some US companies could continue to work with Huawei, but only with authorization from Washington.
The Trump administration made Huawei a target, claiming that the company compromised the country's security, at a time when the telecommunications industry was beginning the technological leap that 5G represents, with the Chinese company emerging as one of the main players supplying important components for infrastructure telco.
The American allegations led the United States to a worldwide campaign for allied countries to ban the Chinese 5G company. Portugal was one of the countries covered by American diplomacy. In Europe, countries like the United Kingdom and Sweden decided to ban Huawei from developing a new technological wave.
Huawei has consistently denied US accusations that the company would be an open door to alleged espionage actions by the Chinese state.
