Trump's economic advisor says Huawei still has some restrictions on buying U.S. supplies

Early Saturday morning, we told you that the presidents of the U.S. and China, Donald Trump and Xi Jinping respectively, had reached a truce on the trade war embroiling both countries. As a result, Trump told the media that “U.S. companies can sell their equipment to Huawei. We’re talking about equipment where there’s no great national security problem with it.” Last month, Huawei was put on the U.S. Commerce Department’s Entity List preventing it from buying supplies from U.S. companies. Because of the ban, Huawei was about to be forced into using its own Hongmeng operating system and the App Gallery storefront for the upcoming Mate 30 series. But Trump’s comments ended all of Huawei’s worries, right? Wrong.
National Economic Council chairman Larry Kudlow said today on “Fox Sunday” (via Reuters) that the U.S. based technology that Huawei can now source has to be for components and software that is available widely worldwide. Kudlow said that Trump’s comments about Huawei “not a general amnesty” and that the agreement “is not the last word.” He added that “All that is going to happen is Commerce will grant some additional licenses where there is a general availability” for the parts needed by Huawei. As an example, the White House’s economic advisor said that chips being sold by U.S. companies are available from suppliers in other countries.
So what about Google? While Android is an open source operating system, the Google Play services version of the software must be licensed by Huawei for it to retain access to Google’s popular core apps and the Google Play Store and is not widely available from other countries. While there are operating systems available from other countries (Huawei was reportedly looking at one from Russia), it will depend on how the Trump administration interprets its own rules.
On NBC’s weekly news program “Meet the Press,” U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said that the Senate won’t be pleased if too many concessions are made to Huawei. The company is considered a threat to U.S. national security because the communist Chinese government can request that it spy on its behalf. This has led U.S. lawmakers to worry that Huawei’s devices contain a backdoor that can be used as a conduit to send intelligence to Beijing. Huawei has repeatedly denied these allegations.
This is a developing story. Check back soon.