It has been hard to miss but back in May the US commerce department added trade restrictions on Huawei and discontinued its business with American firms, and now the Trump government’s acting chief is asking for a postpone in restrictions on Huawei’s products.
White House’s acting budget official, Russell Vought, has requested, Vice president Mike Pence, that some of the restrictions against Huawei sales be delayed for two Years “to ensure the effective implementation of the prohibition without compromising desired security Objectives.
Vought said the timeline for the restrictions against Huawei would cause a “dramatic reduction” in the number of contractors.
He also asked that restriction against purchasing Huawei equipment imposed on government contracts to begin in four years, rather than two years. This delay would give extra time to think through the related impacts and possible solutions.
“This is about ensuring that companies who do business with the U.S. government or receive federal grants and loans have time to extricate themselves from doing business with Huawei and other Chinese tech companies listed in the NDAA,” Jacob Wood, a spokesman for the White House OMB, said in a statement.
The US blacklisted Huawei citing that the company can use its equipment for breaching nation’s security and is controlled by the Chinese government but Huawei has repeatedly denied these allegations.
The requested delay would not stop or affect the timing of a separate Commerce Department rule that added Huawei to its “Entity List,” a blacklist that bans the company from buying parts and equipment from American firms without U.S. government approval.
