Huawei managed to sidestep the US trade ban a few months ago, but the Chinese tech giant might have to contend with another ban in the UK next.
Unlike the “entity list” ban that prevented American companies from selling products to Huawei, however, the ban in question is focused more on excluding them from the UK’s telecom infrastructure instead.
The possibility of a ban was revealed by US National Security Advisor John Bolton, who recently visited the UK to speak with newly-appointed Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s new government.
“They (British officials) said in particular they are looking really from square one on the Huawei issue,” Bolton said in an interview with the Financial Times. “They were very concerned about not having any compromise in security of telecommunications in the 5G space.”
“What they said was ‘we would like to review this and be very sure about our decision and we too are concerned about the security of our 5G telecommunications network.”
While this is no doubt bad news for Huawei, it shouldn’t come as a complete surprise — the US banned Huawei from its own telecom infrastructure way before the trade ban was even a thing, and Boris Johnson is known to be supportive of US President Donald Trump’s policies.
Bolton added that the US will wait until Brexit — which will happen on October 31st — is over, before they would pursue the matter with the UK again. Either way, things are not looking good for the Chinese tech giant.
Between all the bans and releasing their own proprietary operating system, it’s safe to say that Huawei’s been having a very interesting 2019.
Header Image Credit: Reuters