The Biden administration has revoked eight licenses this year that allowed some companies to supply goods to Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei, hoping to put pressure on the resurgent company, according to a document first reported by Reuters.
Marko Djurica | Reuters
The Biden administration has revoked eight licenses this year that allowed some companies to supply goods to Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei, hoping to put pressure on the resurgent company, according to a document first reported by Reuters.
The Commerce Department, which oversees U.S. export policy, said in May that it had revoked “certain” licenses, as Reuters first reported, but did not name or identify the number of suppliers affected. Licenses for Qualcomm And Intel were among the revoked permits, Reuters reported at the time.
“Since early 2024, (the Commerce Department) has revoked eight additional licenses related to Huawei,” the agency said in the document, which was prepared in response to an investigation by Republican Congressman Michael McCaul.
According to the document, Huawei's licensing approvals include “fitness equipment and office furniture, and low-tech components for mass consumer products, such as touchpads and touchscreen sensors for tablets.” These are widely available in China through Chinese and foreign sources, the Commerce Ministry said.
Huawei and Qualcomm did not respond to requests for comment. Intel declined to comment. A spokesman for the House Foreign Affairs Committee, which is chaired by McCaul, said it received the data Tuesday and was reviewing it.
The details shed new light on the measures the Biden administration is taking to stop Huawei, as the company has begun to recover despite Washington's attempts to cripple it on national security grounds. Huawei has denied it is a security risk.
It also comes amid pressure from Republican China hardliners in Congress to bomb the company, which shocked the industry last August with a new phone powered by an advanced chip produced by a Chinese chipmaker. SMIC despite US export restrictions on both companies.
The phone helped boost Huawei’s smartphone sales 64% year-on-year in the first six weeks of 2024, according to research firm Counterpoint. Huawei’s smart auto parts business has also helped fuel its revival, with the company posting its fastest revenue growth in four years in 2023.
Huawei was placed on a U.S. trade restrictions list in 2019 over fears it could spy on Americans. Addition to the list means the company’s suppliers must obtain a special, hard-to-obtain license before they can ship.
But Huawei’s suppliers have been granted billions of dollars worth of licenses to sell Huawei goods and technology, thanks to a policy implemented by the Trump administration that allows a much broader range of goods to flow to the company than is typical for a publicly traded company.
The summary also said that from 2018 to 2023, the agency approved $335 billion worth of licenses out of $880 billion in applications seeking permission to sell to Chinese entities on the Entity List. Of those approvals, $222 billion came in 2021, Biden’s first year in office, out of $560 billion in applications received that year, the agency added.
