U.S. stops granting export licenses for China's Huawei - sources
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[January 31, 2023] By
Karen Freifeld, Alexandra Alper and Stephen Nellis
(Reuters) - The Biden administration has stopped approving licenses for
U.S. companies to export most items to China's Huawei, according to
three people familiar with the matter.
Huawei has faced U.S. export restrictions around items for 5G and other
technologies for several years, but officials in the U.S. Department of
Commerce have granted licenses for some American firms to sell certain
goods and technologies to the company. Qualcomm Inc in 2020 received
permission to sell 4G smartphone chips to Huawei.
A Commerce Department spokesperson said officials "continually assess
our policies and regulations" but do not comment on talks with specific
companies. Huawei and Qualcomm declined to comment. Bloomberg and the
Financial Times earlier reported the move.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said that China opposes
the United States abusing an overly broad notion of national security to
suppress Chinese firms unreasonably.
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The move "goes against the principles of the market economy and rules of
international trade and finance, hurts the confidence the international
community has in the U.S business environment and is blatant
technological hegemony," Mao said during a press conference in Beijing
on Tuesday.
One person familiar with the matter said U.S. officials are creating a
new formal policy of denial for shipping items to Huawei that would
include items below the 5G level, including 4G items, Wifi 6 and 7,
artificial intelligence, and high-performance computing and cloud items.
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A person stands by a sign of Huawei
during World Artificial Intelligence Conference, following the
coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Shanghai, China,
September 1, 2022. REUTERS/Aly Song/File Photo
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Another person said the move was expected to reflect the Biden
administration's tightening of policy on Huawei over the past year.
Licenses for 4G chips that could not be used for 5g, which might
have been approved earlier, were being denied, the person said.
Toward the end of the Trump administration and early in the Biden
administration, officials had still granted licenses for items
specific to 4G applications.
American officials placed Huawei on a trade blacklist in 2019
restricting most U.S. suppliers from shipping goods and technology
to the company unless they were granted licenses. Officials
continued to tighten the controls to cut off Huawei's ability to buy
or design the semiconductor chips that power most of its products.
But U.S. officials granted licenses that allowed Huawei to receive
some products. For example, suppliers to Huawei got licenses worth
$61 billion to sell to the telecoms equipment giant from April
through November 2021.
In December, Huawei said its overall revenue was about $91.53
billion, down only slightly from 2021 when U.S. sanctions caused its
sales to fall by nearly a third.
(Reporting by Chavi Mehta in Bengaluru, Stephen Nellis in San
Francisco, Alexandra Alper and Karen Freifeld in Washington, and Yew
Lun Tian in Beijing; Additional reporting by David Kirton in
Shenzhen; Editing by Shailesh Kuber, Stephen Coates and Louise
Heavens)
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