US President Donald trump has extended his executive order that prohibits US companies from doing business with companies from certain countries.

This time last year Trump signed the Executive Order on Securing the Information and Communications Technology and Services Supply Chain. It skirted around the matter but it was quite clear that it was specifically aimed at keeping Chinese kit vendors out of the US telecoms networks, something that was further confirmed by Huawei’s public ire following the announcement.

Since it would be fair to say that relations between the US and China haven’t exactly thawed in the intervening time, it came as little surprise to see Trump announce the claimed emergency that prompted the executive order is still happening, As a consequence the restrictions put in place have been extended for another year. Here’s the text of the announcement.

On May 15, 2019, by Executive Order 13873, I declared a national emergency pursuant to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.) to deal with the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States posed by the unrestricted acquisition and use of certain information and communications technology and services transactions.

The unrestricted acquisition or use in the United States of information and communications technology or services designed, developed, manufactured, or supplied by persons owned by, controlled by, or subject to the jurisdiction or direction of foreign adversaries augments the ability of these foreign adversaries to create and exploit vulnerabilities in information and communications technology or services, with potentially catastrophic effects. 

This threat continues to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States.  For this reason, the national emergency declared on May 15, 2019, must continue in effect beyond May 15, 2020.  Therefore, in accordance with section 202(d) of the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1622(d)), I am continuing for 1 year the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13873 with respect to securing the information and communications technology and services supply chain.

We’re not aware of and public reaction by Huawei, ZTE or any other companies that may be perceived to be subject to the jurisdiction or direction of foreign adversaries. Internally, however, the US state seems to be launching new initiatives to control communications in the country by the day. The latest news is that the opportunity to restrict the ability of intelligence agencies to spy on citizen’s online activities has been narrowly missed, so American’s would be well advised to surf cautiously.