Commerce Expands Restrictions on Huawei
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By
Frank Konkel
The department's Bureau of Industry and Security added another 38 Huawei affiliates to its Entity List.
The Trump administration continued its pressure campaign on Chinese telecom Huawei Monday with a series of announcements largely geared around restricting the company’s access to commercial technology and chips.
The Commerce Department added to restrictions announced in May that require Huawei to seek special licenses to obtain certain U.S. technologies, including semiconductors made by foreign companies developed in concert with U.S. software.
The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security further added another 38 Huawei affiliates across 21 countries to its Entity List, which restricts those companies from purchasing or otherwise integrating U.S. technologies without a waiver. The Entity List now includes some 152 Huawei affiliates.
“Huawei and its foreign affiliates have extended their efforts to obtain advanced semiconductors developed or produced from U.S. software and technology in order to fulfill the policy objectives of the Chinese Communist Party,” Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in a statement. “As we have restricted its access to U.S. technology, Huawei and its affiliates have worked through third parties to harness U.S. technology in a manner that undermines U.S. national security and foreign policy interests. This multi-pronged action demonstrates our continuing commitment to impede Huawei’s ability to do so.”
In a concurrent rule, the Commerce Department revised the Entity List to require licenses when a party on the list “acts as a purchaser, intermediate consignee, ultimate consignee or end user” to an Export Administration Regulation transaction.
In a statement, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called Huawei “an arm of the Chinese Communist Party’s surveillance state.”
The latest policy moves against China mirror a stronger stance taken by Trump cabinet members in recent months. In July, Attorney General William Barr said China posed an existential threat to the United States in a nationally televised speech. Barr’s remarks followed those by FBI Director Chris Wray, who said the government opens a new China-related counterintelligence investigation every 10 hours.