The Trump administration has notified Huawei vendors, including US-based chipmaker Intel, that it is revoking certain licenses for sale to the Chinese company and plans to reject dozens of other requests for delivery to the telecommunications company, people familiar with the case told Reuters news. agency.
The move – likely the latest against Huawei Technologies under Republican President Donald Trump – is the latest in a long-running attempt to weaken the world’s largest telecommunications equipment manufacturer, which Washington sees as a threat to national security.
The communications came amid a flurry of US efforts against China in the closing days of Trump’s administration. Democrat Joe Biden will take the oath of office as president on Wednesday.
An Intel Corp spokesman declined to comment. Commerce said it could not comment on specific licensing decisions, but said the department continues to work with other agencies to enforce “consistent” licensing policies in a way that “protects US national security and foreign policy interests.”
In an email from Reuters documenting the actions, the Semiconductor Industry Association said Friday that the Department of Commerce “intends to cancel a significant number of license requests for exports to Huawei and a revocation of at least one previously issued license. refuse”. Sources familiar with the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity said there was more than one revocation. One of the sources said eight licenses have been taken from four companies.
A ‘wide range’ of products
Japanese flash memory chip maker Kioxia Corp had revoked at least one license, two of the sources said. The company, formerly known as Toshiba Memory Corp, said it “does not disclose business details about specific products or customers.”
The email from the semiconductor association stated that the actions covered a “wide range” of products in the semiconductor industry and asked companies if they had received any notices.
The email stated that companies had waited “many months” for licensing decisions, and with less than a week to go into the administration, dealing with the denials was a challenge.
A spokesperson for the semiconductor group did not respond to a request for comment.
Companies that have received the ‘intent to decline’ notices have 20 days to respond, and the Department of Commerce has 45 days to notify them of any change to a decision or it will become final. Companies then have another 45 days to appeal.
Stepping up action
The US put Huawei on the trading division’s “entity list” in May 2019, preventing suppliers from selling US goods and technology to it.
But some sales were allowed and others denied, as the government intensified its crackdown on the company, in part by expanding the US authority to require licenses to sell semiconductors made abroad with US technology.
Before the latest action, there were about 150 pending licenses for $ 120 billion worth of goods and technology, which had been held up because several US agencies could not agree on whether to grant them, a person familiar with the matter said. .
An additional $ 280 billion in license applications for goods and technology for Huawei have still not been processed, the source said, but are now more likely to be denied.
An August line said products with 5G capabilities would likely be rejected, but sales of less advanced technology would be decided on a case-by-case basis.
The last refusals
The US made the final decisions at half a dozen meetings that began on Jan. 4 with senior officials from the departments of Commerce, State, Defense and Energy, the source said. The officials developed detailed guidelines as to which technologies were capable of 5G, then applied that standard, the person added.
That meant declining denials for the vast majority of the roughly 150 disputed applications, and revoking the eight licenses to make them consistent with the latest denials, the source said.
The US move came after pressure from a recent Trump appointee at the Department of Commerce, Corey Stewart, who wanted to push through with tough Chinese policies after being hired for a two-month period at the agency at the end of the administration.
Trump has attacked Huawei in other ways. Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s chief financial officer, was arrested in Canada in December 2018 on the basis of a US warrant. Meng, the daughter of Huawei’s founder, and the company itself were charged with misleading banks about their business in Iran.
Meng has said she is innocent. Huawei has denied the claims of espionage and pleaded not guilty to the charges, which also include allegations of violating US sanctions against Iran and conspiring to steal trade secrets from US technology companies.