Trump says U.S. firms can continue doing business with Huawei

Huawei isn't out of the woods yet, but Trump's statement allows the Chinese manufacturer to source goods from the U.S.

What you need to know

• At the G20 summit, Donald Trump has confirmed that U.S. firms will be allowed to continue doing business with Huawei.
• Huawei isn't off the Commerce Department's Entity List, but Trump's statement allows the likes of Google, Intel, and Qualcomm to provide services to Huawei.
• The move comes as the U.S. and China resume trade talks.

Huawei's month-long nightmare is nearing an end, as Donald Trump has confirmed at the G20 summit in Japan that U.S. companies can continue doing business with the Chinese manufacturer.

Trump said that allowing U.S. firms to supply components to the Chinese manufacturer doesn't pose a national security threat:

I did agree to allow our companies - you know, jobs, I like our companies selling things to other people. So I allowed that to happen. Very complex things. Not easy — this is not things that are easy to make.

Very few companies are able to do it, but a tremendous amount of money. Our companies were very upset. These companies are great companies you know all of them. But they weren't exactly happy with it. But we're allowing that, because that wasn't national security.

Just over a month ago, Huawei was put on the U.S. Commerce Department Entity List, effectively preventing U.S. firms from doing business with the Chinese manufacturer. Google managed to get a 90-day stay on that order, allowing the company to roll out updates to Huawei devices.

In the weeks since, we've heard that the likes of Qualcomm and Intel have been lobbying the government to get a stay on the ban, as well as Google.

Huawei isn't being taken off the Commerce Department's ban, but the fact that U.S. firms can continue to sell services to the manufacturer is a step in the right direction. As to when Huawei will be taken off the blacklist, Trump said:

I don't want to talk about it now, we're looking at that very carefully. Huawei is very much in play in terms of our country and in terms of intelligence and the intelligence community - we know a lot about Huawei - but I don't want to mention that right now. I just think it's inappropriate. We're not making it other than what I told you… We're going to save that for later.

The move comes as the U.S. and China resume trade talks, with Huawei being used as leverage in the discussions. Trump said as much at the end of last month, and it's possible that should the U.S. get a favorable trade deal with China, Huawei will be taken off the Entity List:

Huawei is a complicated situation, we're leaving Huawei Huawei towards the end. We'll see where we go with the trade agreement.

We'll have to see how this plays out, but it looks like things are once again looking up for Huawei.

by Harish Jonnalagadda