Two weeks ago, US President Donald Trump announced at the G20 Summit that he would be lifting the trade ban on Huawei.
And while this was no doubt good news for the Chinese tech giant and their fans, there was still a cloud of uncertainty looming in the background – Trump’s words were…well, just words, and nothing had been officially implemented.
Until now, that is. Earlier this week, US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross announced that the government would indeed allow companies to sell their products to Huawei, which means that they won’t lose access to companies like Google, Intel and Qualcomm.
“To implement the President’s G20 summit directive two weeks ago, Commerce will issue licenses where there is no threat to US security.” he said.
“Within those confines we will try to make sure that we don’t just transfer revenue from the US to foreign firms.”
So are we back to the status quo from 8 weeks ago? Kind of. Huawei actually hasn’t been removed from the “entity list”, though whether this extends beyond the minor inconvenience of getting a license remains to be seen.
And while it’s probably safe to start buying Huawei products again, it’s worth noting that Economic Advisor to the president Larry Kudlow has said that the ban would be relaxed “for a limited time period.”
Are we destined to see history repeat itself (probably not, considering that Huawei is already developing its own OS), or is the US Government simply puffing its chest? In the interest of not having to go though all that drama again, we sure hope it’s the latter.
Header Image Credit: Huawei
