The opposition between the North American government and the Chinese Huawei knows no rests: in view of new measures to limit the business of US companies with this company
Trade tension between the US administration and Huawei continues to remain high. The most recent reports on the subject highlight the willingness of the North American Department of Commerce to make it more difficult for US companies to sell their products to Huawei but that the Department of Defense has blocked this move for the time being.
At the moment, products of American companies that have been developed with components and work coming at least 75% from outside the United States can be freely sold to Huawei by American companies, without the need to receive an exclusive trade license.
This means that if a good contains, according to the Department of Commerce, more than 25% of its parts coming from raw materials and work directly from the USA, it cannot be freely sold by Huawei but needs a specific intervention.
The Department of Commerce would like to make these conditions even more stringent, from the current 25% to the future 10%. This would imply that an undeveloped product or technology with less than 10% direct contribution from the US could not be sold to Huawei without a specific license.
At present, this decision, remarked by Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, would have been held back by the Department of Defense. There is also considerable internal pressure from American companies, which have one of the most critical customers in Huawei and which would suffer significant economic damage if they could no longer sell their products to the Chinese company.
The US and Chinese governments have recently signed a trade agreement, which is the first step in the work of defining a trade policy between the two companies. No mention was made of Huawei in this first agreement and, according to current rumours, it does not appear that the second phase also covers this point. All that remains now is to see what the next steps will be: something is expected from the Chinese Government, at least to protect what is the leading technology company in China.
