Members of the Senate and the House of Representatives are working on a set of bipartisan bills that would block exports of Chinese telecommunications companies that violate sanctions.
These bills would primarily affect Huawei and ZTE, two Chinese telecommunications companies that have violated sanctions and do work on technology in the US. In fact, the US has already begun blocking Huawei’s exports of its tech products from an R&D lab in California.
Wisconsin Representative, Mike Gallagher, who is a co-sponsor of the House bill, stated that these two companies are a “growing threat to American national security”. Also stating that they should face the same punishment that ZTE faced last year, before coming up with a deal with the US government to reopen its business in the US.
This, of course, would be yet another blow to Huawei and its business in the US. Everyday, something comes out regarding Huawei, and now it looks like their business in the US is essentially dead. Just yesterday, reports surfaced that Huawei was being criminally investigated over stealing trade secrets from US companies, including T-Mobile.
If these bills make it through the House and the Senate and get signed by the President, it could force a ban on Huawei’s US-based equipment exports. That would limit Huawei’s ability to sell products in other parts of the world. Seeing as it needs to work in the US, even if it is not selling products in the US, due to it working with Google and Microsoft.
This wouldn’t be as big of a deal for Huawei as it was for ZTE, seeing as Huawei makes its own chipsets, and ZTE relies heavily on Qualcomm. But it would still have a pretty large effect on Huawei’s international business.
Huawei has continued to deny that it has violated US sanctions and that it is being used by the Chinese government to spy on its customers. But the government still sees Huawei as a threat to national security. Though recent events are not helping Huawei’s cause in this matter.
Last week, one of Huawei’s executives in Poland was arrested along with a former Polish spy, on espionage charges. This of course, comes about a month after its CFO was arrested in Vancouver over the company’s violation of US sanctions. Then this week, there were reports that there are different investigations into Huawei’s wrongdoing while working with T-Mobile. All of this is painting Huawei in a pretty negative light, unfortunately.
So far, there are only a handful of Congress members that are on-board with these bills. But that likely won’t last long. It may be a while before a vote is set for this bill however, seeing as most of Congress are looking for ways to get the government reopened. Seeing as it has been shutdown for nearly a month now, and there’s no end in sight. That’s a much bigger deal for Congress to get taken care of, then attempting to block exports of two of China’s biggest telecommunications companies.