Sanctions: Media: US could cut Huawei off from US technology

sanctions
Media: US could cut Huawei off from US technology

The Huawei logo at the IFA electronics fair in Berlin. photo

© Fabian Sommer/dpa

Huawei, once a Chinese rising star and serious rival to Samsung, has been suffering massively from US sanctions since 2019. Now Washington could cut further access to important technology.

According to media reports, the US government is considering completely cutting off access to American technology for the Chinese Huawei group.

A final decision has not yet been made, the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Bloomberg financial service reported on Tuesday night, citing informed people. But US chip companies such as Intel and Qualcomm have been signaled that their exemptions to supply some products to Huawei should not be extended.

The US government imposed sanctions on Huawei in 2019 under then-President Donald Trump. Concerns about national security were given as the reason, since the network supplier and smartphone provider could cooperate with Chinese authorities and the military. Huawei always rejected the allegations. The key limitation is that Huawei can only get American technology with permission from Washington. President Joe Biden left this in place. According to reports, some responsible persons in the US government are now in favor of no longer issuing such licenses at all.

Before the US action, Huawei was the second largest smartphone provider and also wanted to overtake the market leader Samsung. As a result of the sanctions, the group can no longer sell devices with fast 5G data transmission and Google services, which practically threw it out of business internationally. Huawei can still sell a few smartphone models with chips from Qualcomm and a range of notebooks with Intel processors. It is unclear how hard a complete stop would hit the group. Against the background of political tensions between Beijing and Washington, China is currently trying to build up a chip industry that functions largely independently of supplies from the West.

dpa

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