US yet to grant any licenses to sell to Huawei - report

Despite a second suspension of the Huawei export ban, none of the 130 special license applications from US companies have been approved.

This news comes courtesy of Reuters, which has chatted to a few people who reckon they know what they’re talking about. They say the U.S. Commerce Department has received over 130 applications from companies for licenses to sell US goods to Huawei but three months after the export ban was suspended specifically to help them out, none of those licenses have been granted.

There’s not a lot of point in continually making concessions to soften the blow for US companies, only to fail to follow through on them. One on-the-record bloke in the Reuters piece places the blame at President Trump’s feet and the lack of guidance offered to agencies. They, in turn, are afraid of granting licenses in case they provoke the capricious commander-in-chief into some act of arbitrary retribution.

It’s almost as if the Trump administration doesn’t actually care about the impact its trade war with China may be having on US businesses and just makes shallow concessions every now and then to keep its critics off guard. Without an efficient process for granting licenses the continued suspension of the export ban is totally meaningless, which is probably what prompted the leaks in this story. Trump needs to make a call on this one way or the other because the current regulatory limbo is the worst of both worlds for US companies.