U.S. Department of Commerce Temporarily Lifts Ban on Huawei

Yesterday May 20, 2019 the U.S. Department of Commerce announced it would issue a temporary license lasting 90 days to “authorize specific, limited engagement in transactions involving… Huawei Technologies” (1). This announcement comes after President Trump’s “Executive Order on Securing the Information and Communications Technology and Services Supply Chain” last week led to Huawei being added to the Department of Commerce’s “Entity List” which requires Huawei to have a special license to proceed with exporting, importing, and other transfer of its goods and services (2,3). Minority Leader, Senator Chuck Schumer stated on the congressional floor yesterday that he is “in full support of what the Commerce Department did on Huawei, and… [that] Huawei is a national security concern” (4). “The Executive Order aims to keep the “United States and its people [safe] from information and communications technology or services designed, developed, manufactured, or supplied by… a foreign adversary” by stopping transactions with these foreign adversaries as they “constitute[] an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States” (2). In response and in accordance with the Executive Order, the “Secretary of Commerce determine[d] that a transaction [with Huawei] would pose a threat to national security” (5). With the Department of Commerce’s announcement yesterday, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross says Huawei is granted “time to make other arrangements and the Department space to determine the appropriate long term measures for Americans and foreign telecommunications providers that currently rely on Huawei equipment for critical services… [and] this license will allow operations to continue for existing Huawei mobile phone users and rural broadband networks” (1).

1. https://www.commerce.gov/news/press-releases/2019/05/department-commerce-issues-limited-exemptions-huawei-products
2. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-securing-information-communications-technology-services-supply-chain/
3. https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/policy-guidance/lists-of-parties-of-concern/entity-list
4. https://www.congress.gov/congressional-record/2019/5/20/senate-section/article/s2954-1?s=1&r=37
5. https://www.commerce.gov/news/press-releases/2019/05/president-trump-declares-national-emergency-secure-information-and