Last Wednesday (13) the President of the United States, Donald Trump, signed an executive order that extends for another year the ban on the country's telecommunications companies using equipment manufactured by companies that could pose any kind of danger to national security. Now, equipment from companies that fall into this category — such as Huawei — are prohibited from being used by operators in the country until 2021. x6z26
According to of the United States Congress, the measure — originally signed in May 2019 — has as its main targets the ZTE, two Chinese companies that are world leaders in the manufacture of equipment for the deployment of the infrastructure necessary for the operation of 5G networks.
This is because both companies are part of a “black list” of the country, which makes them considered a threat to national security. The reason for including the two in this list would be an alleged spying that these companies would carry out for the Chinese government, but so far no conclusive evidence has been shown that they are actually spying on US communications.
The executive order was issued by invoking the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which gives the president authority to regulate all commerce in the country in response to an emergency that threatens national security. , and allows him to make this type of decision without needing congressional and senate approval.
In the original document, the reasons cited as possible risks to national security caused by the use of equipment by these companies were sabotage to the country's communications, risk to the US telephone infrastructure and risks to the digital economy of the same. According to the Reuters, there was no update to the text, and the president Trump he only extended the ban using the same justifications.
Understanding the Trump v Huawei case 416n4z
Since 2017, the United States and China have been living in a constant fiscal war, and one of the biggest targets of the western country is the Huawei, China's largest manufacturer of telephony equipment.
Fights between the US and the Chinese company intensified when the country discovered that the company was selling telephone equipment to Iran, thus violating economic sanctions that the president Trump had placed in the Middle Eastern country. This violation led to the arrest of Meng Wanzhou, CFO of Huawei and daughter of the company's CEO, and culminated in the ban signed by Trump in May 2019, which prevented any company in the country from using company equipment.
But despite the Huawei still on the country's “black list”, the US government has already issued several temporary licenses allowing local companies to transact business with the Chinese company. These licenses are typically aimed at companies that do business with the smartphone division of Huawei and should not be affected by the renewal of the ban, as government-related sources have already warned the Reuters that the current licenses, which are valid until the end of this week, should be renewed without setbacks.
for allowing the Huawei continue selling their smartphones in the country and negotiating with US chip and software makers, many believe that the “national security risk” is just the reason found by Trump to ban the company from selling its 5G equipment to US operators. This is because, currently, the Huawei is the leader of this segment in the world market, being the main competitor of American companies that also want to take advantage of the 5G “boom” to sell their equipment aimed at assembling the infrastructure of these networks.
When the first ban was signed in May of last year, the Huawei stated in an official statement that restricting the company's business in the United States will not make the country's telecommunications stronger or more secure, and will only leave the country behind in the implementation of 5G, as operators there will be forced to acquire more equipment. expensive and of inferior quality than those of the Chinese company.
Source: Reuters
