US designates 38 further Huawei affiliates worldwide
The Trump administration again tightened controls on Huawei another notch this week, designating 38 affiliates worldwide and choking the Chinese telecom giant’s access to semiconductor chips by US companies or to American technology.
The announcement on 17 August by the Commerce Department expands restrictions announced in May, limiting the sale of US software that Huawei can use to manufacture microchips for its smartphones and telecoms systems.
The Commerce Department said that the Bureau of Industry and Security (‘BIS’) had added another 38 Huawei affiliates in 21 countries to the Entity List, warning that this imposes a licence requirement for all items subject to the Export Administration Regulations (‘EAR’).
‘BIS also imposed license requirements on any transaction involving items subject to Commerce export control jurisdiction where a party on the Entity List is involved, such as when Huawei (or other Entity List entities) acts as a purchaser, intermediate, or end user,’ the Commerce Department said. ‘These actions, effective immediately, prevent Huawei’s attempts to circumvent U.S. export controls to obtain electronic components developed or produced using U.S. technology.’
These latest restrictions continue President Trump’s broadside against China, in which his administration has targeted apps TikTok and WeChat as well as telecom companies like Huawei and ZTE.
Global Times, China’s official English-language newspaper, quoted a Chinese analyst as saying that the new US ruling paints Huawei into a very tight corner.
‘The new restrictions have closed all roads for Huawei,’ the newspaper quoted its veteran analyst Ma Jihua as saying. He explained that suppliers such as MediaTek in Taiwan and Samsung in South Korea might no longer be able to sell chips to Huawei.
