US Government Grants Huawei 3 Month License Extension

The US Commerce Department said on Monday that they would grant Chinese telecom giant Huawei a 90-day extension on their license allowing them to do business with American companies. This extension was motivated by the reliance on Huawei telecom infrastructure by some rural parts of the US.

In an effort to limit the disruption to these rural parts of America, the US Commerce Secretary said, “The Temporary General License extension will allow carriers to continue to service customers in some of the most remote areas of the United States who would otherwise be left in the dark.” This is the third time the United States has extended Huawei’s license to conduct business with American companies since the Chinese company was placed on the Entity List in May.

Huawei responded in a statement claiming that the license extension does not reprieve the United States from what Huawei considers unfair treatment, “won’t have a substantial impact on Huawei’s business either way. This decision does not change the fact that Huawei continues to be treated unfairly.”

SEE ALSO: US Government to Extend Huawei License by Two Weeks

Huawei has previously spoken about the negative impact of the blacklisting on American companies, previously commenting, “has caused significant economic harm to the American companies with which Huawei does business, disrupted collaboration and undermined the mutual trust on which the global supply chain depends.“

The conflict between the US government during the Trump administration and Huawei underlines the decoupling of global supply chains, in an era when free trade agreements such as NAFTA and TPP have been reconsidered by the US government. While Huawei is very much a symbol of the trade war between the US and China, the Chinese telecom company has generated stable performances despite the difficulties caused by the blacklist. Huawei’s competitiveness may have even been augmented as the blacklisting has spurred the company to develop their own components via their subsidiary HiSilicon and their own operating system Harmony OS.