Huawei's U.S. suppliers get fresh 90-day license

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Yesterday, for the third time since it banned Chinese manufacturer Huawei from the stateside supply chain, the Trump administration issued a 90-day license allowing U.S. companies to do business with Huawei. The previous 90-day exemption period expired yesterday and earlier reports said that the Commerce Department would grant U.S. suppliers six-month temporary licenses enabling them to do business with Huawei. But that changed and as recently as last Friday, the grace period was rumored to be for two-weeks only. Reuters reports today that over the weekend, Trump administration officials changed their minds and decided to grant 90-day exemptions instead.

As U.S. officials have discovered, it is not easy to punish a company that you perceive to be a security threat when it happens to be the world's leading provider of networking equipment. Some of Huawei's customers are small wireless operators in rural areas of the country and these carriers rely on Huawei gear for their 3G and 4G networks.
The U.S. Commerce Department is concerned about leaving rural Americans without internet service

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said yesterday that the extension "will allow carriers to continue to service customers in some of the most remote areas of the United States who would otherwise be left in the dark. There are enough problems with telephone service in the rural communities - we don’t want to knock them out. So, one of the main purposes of the temporary general licenses is to let those rural guys continue to operate." Ross added, "The department will continue to rigorously monitor sensitive technology exports to ensure that our innovations are not harnessed by those who would threaten our national security." In addition to claims that it steals intellectual property from American tech firms, Huawei is considered a threat to U.S. national security for another reason as well. Because of fears that the Chinese government will demand that it spy on consumers and corporations, American lawmakers are concerned that the company's phones and networking equipment contain technology that will send intelligence to Beijing. The company has denied this repeatedly. Last week, U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr said that Huawei and fellow Chinese manufacturer ZTE "cannot be trusted."

The Commerce Department has yet to put into effect an executive order signed by President Donald Trump back in May. The order declared a national emergency and banned U.S. companies from using networking equipment procured from firms considered to be threats to U.S. security. A plan was supposed to have been put in place by the middle of last month.