About two months after Huawei was placed on the Commerce Department’s Entity List, the Chinese telecom equipment and smartphone giant will be able to do business with American suppliers again–but only if they get a license from the U.S. government. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross made the announcement during a department conference, adding that companies must first demonstrate that the technology they sell to Huawei will not put national security at risk.
Huawei will remain on the entity list, however, and license applications will be reviewed under a “presumption of denial,” making it likely that most will not be approved.
Last month while both presidents were in Japan for the G20 Summit, Donald Trump told Chinese leader Xi Jinping that he would allow U.S. companies to sell equipment to Huawei again, but the promise created confusion about how it would be carried out, with the Commerce Department instructing staff to continue acting as if the blacklist is still in place. Huawei, the world’s largest telecom equipment maker and second-largest smartphone vendor, is a major bargaining chip in the ongoing trade war between the U.S. and China.
The blacklist has had a major impact on Huawei, with important suppliers like Qualcomm, Intel and Google severing ties after it was placed on the entity list. Huawei, which has repeatedly denied being a threat to U.S. national security, said that being blacklisted would cost the company about $30 billion in revenue, though founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei later downplayed the impact in an interview with CNBC. It also means U.S. companies have lost an important customer. Out of the $70 billion Huawei spent buying components last year, $11 billion went to American companies like Qualcomm, Intel and Micron.
