Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said the
extension will allow wireless companies to keep
offering service in remote parts of the U.S. Larger
U.S. wireless companies do not use equipment
from Huawei, while smaller, rural carriers do.
Despite sanctions, numerous loopholes
have been exploited. U.S. companies, for
example, continue to supply Huawei with
chips made outside the United States. Nor do
the sanctions bar U.S. telecoms from buying
Huawei equipment — though the Federal
Communications Commission is moving toward
banning federal subsidies for such purchases.
President Donald Trump has sent mixed
signals on Huawei, enmeshing it in the trade
war between Washington and Beijing and
showing a willingness to use the sanctions
as a bargaining chip.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer
decried that strategy.
“If President Trump and his Commerce
Department agree that Huawei is a national
security threat, they should start acting like it,” he
said in a statement. “Every day President Trump
is soft on Huawei, the Chinese Communist Party
takes that as a signal that they can continue
hurting American jobs and threatening our
national security without any repercussions.”
Earlier this month, Commerce Secretary Wilbur
Ross told Bloomberg that his agency had
received 260 requests for licenses from U.S.
companies to be exempt from the so-called
“entity list” sanctions. Ross said “quite a few”
would soon be granted. Such an exemption
would not dependent on 90-day renewals.
Image: Drew Angerer