Trump administration expands list of Huawei divisions banned from access to American technology

The administration of US President Donald Trump is further tightening restrictions on Huawei. In May this year, due to further US restrictions, TSMC stopped accepting new orders for the production of chips for Huawei. Last week, a temporary license expired that allowed US companies to cooperate and maintain trade relations with Huawei.

On Monday, the US Department of Commerce said it would authorize "ongoing security research critical to maintaining the integrity and reliability of existing and currently fully operational networks and equipment," introducing a limited permit for Huawei units. The fact is that the temporary license allowed not only to receive Android updates for devices released before May 16, 2019, but also extended to many telecommunications companies in agricultural areas using Huawei equipment. These companies will now have to apply for licenses to conduct operations that were previously permitted.

At the same time, the US government is imposing restrictions on dozens of companies associated with Huawei.

“Because we restricted the company's access to US technology, Huawei and its affiliates worked through third parties to use US technology in a way that could undermine US national security and foreign policy interests,” Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross said Monday.

In May 2019, the Trump administration added Huawei and 114 of its divisions to the Entity List. Thus, American companies could not transfer their technology to companies on the Entity List without explicit approval from the US government. Now, the Trump administration has announced it is expanding the list of Huawei units on the list. It adds 38 more divisions of the Chinese company, which are located in 21 countries. Thus, now 152 companies associated with Huawei appear in the Entity List.