US suspends Huawei ban for three months to help operators adapt

The US Department of Commerce has given Huawei a three month license to buy US goods in order to lessen the disruption to US companies.

The decision follows the news that a bunch of US companies, including Google, were going to stop doing business with Huawei. Not only would this do severe damage to the desirability of Huawei Android smartphones sold outside of China, but would have caused major disruption to any US companies that rely on working with Huawei.

The DoC therefore decided to grant a temporary licence allowing Huawei and US companies to buy stuff from each other for 90 days starting 20 May. Any US operators that use Huawei gear now effectively have three months to swap it out for equipment not made by anyone on the US shitlist. Any of them still flogging Huawei smartphones might want to take that time to return them to their source too.

“The Temporary General License grants operators time to make other arrangements and the Department space to determine the appropriate long term measures for Americans and foreign telecommunications providers that currently rely on Huawei equipment for critical services,” said Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross. “In short, this license will allow operations to continue for existing Huawei mobile phone users and rural broadband networks.”

Huawei responded with its now familiar defiance, telling Chinese media that none of this is remotely surprising and that it doesn’t even need the temporary license because it saw all this stuff coming ages ago. Additionally a UK Huawei exec told the beeb he reckons Huawei is just collateral damage in the broader trade war between the US and China, which is hard to argue with.

If you’re really into that sort of thing you can read the full temporary license decision here. This doesn’t seem to represent any softening of the US position, just an attempt to cushion the blow for US companies and consumers. It may, however, also represent a diplomatic window for US and China to try to resolve their differences and prevent the ban kicking in on 19 August. Time will tell but further escalation seems more likely than a truce at this point.