US IMPOSES NEW SANCTIONS ON HUAWEI

The US has imposed new restrictions on Chinese tech giant Huawei’s ability to use American technology by barring foreign countries from using US chips for Huawei-designed products and requiring foreign manufacturers to secure US licenses if they are to export semiconductors using US technology to Huawei.

Frank Bajak of the Associated Press (AP) reported on May 16, 2020 that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said Friday  that Washington wants to prevent Huawei from evading sanctions imposed earlier on its use of American technology to design and produce semiconductors abroad. “There has been a very highly technical loophole through which Huawei has been able to in effect use U.S. technology,” Ross told Fox Business. “We never intended that loophole to be there.”

Under the new rules, foreign semiconductor makers must obtain a U. license to ship Huawei-designed semiconductors to the Chinese company that were produced using US technology.

The move “looks like a victory for the people who really want to drive the nail, or what they think will be the nail, in Huawei’s coffin,” said Adam Segal, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Kevin Wolf, an attorney at Akin Gump who oversaw export administration at the Commerce Department during the Obama administration, noted the narrow scope of the rules. “If a foreign foundry makes a chip based on a Huawei design and US equipment is used to make a chip then it’s controlled, but if a chip is not made from a Huawei design then it is not controlled,” he said.