In this final days in office Trump has taken one final swipe at the shipments of Chinese company Huawei in new restrictions. As reported by Reuters, various chipmaker suppliers for Huawei have been notified that their licenses will be revoked in the coming days.
It was almost a year to the day that major sanctions against Huawei and its supply chain came in. This followed significant government infighting but resulted in major blows to its ability to source various equipment pieces.
This entity list grew longer and longer over 2020 with major Chinese chip manufactures unable to supply Huawei. This has devastated the company’s efforts in the US but in turn, ahs also damaged US companies on the global market.
In his last days in office though Trump has gone even further in an attempt to weaken Huawei even more. Revoking the licenses of many companies comes in the midst of various actions taken against China by Trump in his final days of office as reported by Phone Arena.
Trump revokes more licenses for Huawei suppliers
Intel Corp is one one the more well-known suppliers that has been hit by this new set of restrictions. Both Intel and Huawei declined to comment on the new restrictions.
The department of commerce also declined to comment on specific licensing decisions. However, it did have some more general comments to make. A spokesperson said the department would continue to apply policies in a way that “protects U.S. national security and foreign policy interests”.
This new set of restrictions from the Trump administration will likely hit the shipments of Huawei hard once again. Sources close to the situation claim that as many as eight licenses will be revoked in this new action.
This latest set of decisions began in a series of meetings that started on January 4. They contain a series of officials from the departments of Commerce, State, Defense and Energy.
They developed detailed guidance regarding which technologies were capable of 5G. The group then applied a standard from August which said that products capable of 5G would be rejected.
Sources claim this makes the revocations and denial consistent with previous decisions made. However, to many, it will seem like one final move from Trump to further harm Huawei and China.
With Biden set to be sworn in this week things may change in terms of the approach will take to China. However, many predict changes in policy will be slight and not sweeping forcing commentators to pay attention to the nuance.