US government issues new rules that loosens its restrictions on Huawei

A few years ago, the US government placed Huawei on the Entity List, effectively banning Huawei from doing business with US companies and vice versa. It also prevented Huawei from working with non-US companies that rely on technologies made in the US, which further crippled Huawei’s ability to produce competitive devices.

But it looks like things could be changing soon. According to a report from Bloomberg, it appears that the US Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security announced a new rule that effectively loosens some of the restrictions placed against sanctioned companies, Huawei included.

These new rules means that certain “low-level” pieces of technology can be shared with companies on the blacklist without the need to obtain a license first. Prior to this, US companies could still do business with blacklisted companies, but they would need to apply for a license, which meant more hurdles to overcome and it wasn’t necessarily a guarantee that it would be granted.

This move is a political one because apparently, the US government is concerned that with China’s government taking a bigger role in the way technology is designed and applied. By loosening its restrictions, the US government is hoping to maintain their lead when it comes to creating international standards.

In a statement made by Alan Estevez, the Commerce undersecretary for industry and security:

“US stakeholders need to be fully engaged in international standards organisations, particularly where the critical but sometimes invisible standards that they set have important national security as well as commercial implications.”

Source: South China Morning Post