U.S. expands sanctions on Huawei

Washington has slapped further sanctions on Chinese electronics maker Huawei.

Josh Horwitz and Hyunjoo Jin reported the news for Reuters:

Ramped-up U.S. restrictions on Huawei are likely to cut off the Chinese smartphone maker’s access to even off-the-shelf chips and disrupt the global tech supply chain once again, executives and experts cautioned.

The Trump administration on Monday expanded its curbs on Huawei and banned suppliers from selling chips made using U.S. technology to the firm without a special license – closing potential loopholes in its May sanctions that could have let Huawei access the tech via third parties.

Kim Lyons from The Verge wrote:

The Trump administration placed Huawei and 114 of its affiliates on its Entity List in May 2019, which meant US firms were unable to sell technology to the company without explicit US government approval. The president later extended the ban until 2021, citing the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to justify it. The order prevented US companies like Google from doing business with Huawei, preventing Huawei from being able to obtain an Android license and keeping Google apps off of Huawei devices.

The FT’s Kiran Stacey noted:

The expanded restrictions are the latest in a string of actions the Trump administration has unveiled over the past 15 months targeted at the Chinese company, which the US has accused of technology theft and sanctions busting. Washington also has also urged its allies not to buy Huawei kit, arguing it could be used to send citizens’ data back to Beijing.

They foreshadowed a wider set of actions targeted at China and its technology sector in particular. In the last few weeks, President Donald Trump has said he will ban US companies and individuals from undertaking financial transactions with two major Chinese tech champions: ByteDance, which owns the video sharing app TikTok, and WeChat, the messaging platform.