US adds 46 Huawei companies to blacklist, but postpones deadline

The US government has added 46 companies related to Huawei to its Entity List. At the same time, the deadline that expired on Monday has been postponed by three months. Some companies are therefore allowed to do business with Huawei for longer.

US Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross said in an interview with Fox Business on Monday that the companies’ additions to the Entity List should make it more difficult for Huawei to circumvent the trade restrictions. In total, there are now more than a hundred Huawei-related companies on that list.

At the same time, Ross confirms that the Monday deadline has been postponed. It concerns the temporary license that American telecom companies received in May. Google also received that license, so that Huawei can continue to work on upgrades for its smartphones together with the Android supplier. The deadline has been extended by three months and ends around November 19.

The minister emphasizes that American companies may only do business with Huawei and the companies on the list with specific permission. Many US tech companies have applied for permission, but so far the US government has not issued any licenses.

In the interview, Ross emphasizes that the trade restrictions were imposed because of the perceived risks to national security. The Minister states that 5G equipment poses a greater risk than equipment for 3G and 4G networks, because software plays a greater role in the new network standard and the hardware cannot be seen separately from it.

It is rumored that US President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping held telephone conversations over the weekend about the Huawei situation. Ross won’t confirm that. He says Trump will release information about such talks himself if he wants to.