Bloomberg Businessweek - USA (2019-05-27)

P O L I T I C S

5

39

Edited by

Jillian Goodman

● The Trump administration’s

blacklist may lead to a

permanent technology schism

Bluster is a key weapon in the trade war between

the U.S. and China. So it’s natural to want to dismiss

the latest salvo—a U.S. Department of Commerce

ban on doing business with Chinese national cham-

pion technology company Huawei—as another

short-term negotiation tactic of the Trump admin-

istration. Even if that’s what it is, however, the ram-

ifications likely won’t stop with a trade resolution.

If carried out to its full extent, the U.S. govern-

ment’s blacklist could temporarily hobble Huawei

TechnologiesCo.,whichreliesonpartsandsoft-

warefromAmericancompaniessuchasQualcomm

Inc.andGoogletobuildandmarketthe 200 million

mobile phones it ships annually, plus the billions of

dollars’ worth of networking gear it sells globally.

But it could also disrupt the supply chain perma-

nently. Alex Capri, a senior fellow at the Business

School of the National University of Singapore and

onetime U.S. customs official, puts it bluntly:

ILLUSTRATION BY WOSHIBAI

Bloomberg Businessweek May27, 2019

The U.S.

Tries

To Delete

Huawei