The Biden administration is considering completely cutting off Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies Co. from U.S. suppliers over national security concerns by tightening export controls on the firm, according to people familiar with the matter.
The move — should the administration move forward — would be the latest salvo in the high-stakes clash between the world's two largest economies as U.S. policy makers try to counter China's industrial policy they say threatens Western interests.
In 2019 the Trump administration added Huawei to the Department of Commerce's Entity List, a list of foreign companies considered to be national-security threats. The Commerce Department later agreed to grant licenses to US companies allowing them to sell technology to Huawei as long as it wouldn't put national security at risk. The people familiar with the situation said that the Biden administration is considering no longer granting such licenses, although no decision has been made. The deliberations were previously reported by Bloomberg and the Financial Times. The U.S. items exempted from the Huawei blacklist are less advanced chips used in the company's lineup of smartphones and personal computers. Huawei is unable to offer a 5 G-enabled smartphone because U.S. restrictions have cut it off from the most advanced chips needed to power such devices.