WASHINGTON • President Donald Trump has assured executives of several big technology companies that his administration would make timely decisions about whether to allow American firms to continue selling products to Huawei, the Chinese telecom equipment giant that has been placed on a government blacklist, the White House said.
Mr Trump met the leaders of Google, Qualcomm, Cisco, Intel, Micron, Western Digital and Broadcom on Monday to discuss the administration's ban on Huawei, as well as the economy and trade relations with China.
The meeting came as tech companies, including semiconductor firms, continue to push the administration to follow through with Mr Trump's promise to ease curbs on selling chips and other technology to Huawei. The industry has been lobbying the administration to allow a resumption of sales to Huawei after a ban on the sale of US technology imposed this year over national security concerns.
That ban prevented many big tech firms, like Google, from doing business with Huawei without getting a government waiver. As a result, Google cut off support to Huawei for many Android hardware and software services, and other companies also stepped back from doing business with the firm.
Mr Trump, in an effort to restart trade talks with Beijing, last month said he would allow some sales to Huawei to continue. That decision, which surprised many within the administration, came after he had a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Group of 20 summit in Japan last month.
The move was viewed as a significant concession by the Trump administration, which has warned that Huawei's gear poses national security risks and has tried to persuade allies not to use the telecom firm's equipment in their buildout of the next generation of wireless networks, known as 5G.
The White House on Monday said chief executives from the firms "requested timely licensing decisions from the Department of Commerce, and the President agreed". Also at the meeting were National Economic Council director Larry Kudlow, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and top trade negotiator Robert Lighthizer.
The Commerce Department's move in May to block sales to Huawei, by adding the firm to its entity list, prompted confusion within Huawei and among its many American suppliers. Mr Trump added to that confusion last month when, after the meeting with Mr Xi, he said that "US companies can sell their equipment to Huawei" as China had agreed to buy large amounts of agricultural product from the US.
Administration officials have said repeatedly that no licences will be given for products that could jeopardise national security. In practice, that will mean the only licences granted are likely to be for items such as older semiconductor technologies that are freely available on global markets - which Huawei could buy in places like Europe.
"Commerce (Department) will issue licences where there is no threat to US national security," Mr Ross said this month. "Within those confines, we will try to make sure that we don't just transfer revenue from the US to foreign firms."
A Commerce Department spokesman declined to say whether any companies have had their applications approved to sell general merchandise.
Tech companies said little about the outcome but expressed gratitude for the meeting.
"We believe strategic technology investment and policies that ensure open and fair trade on a level playing field are essential to ongoing US technology leadership, as well as economic growth throughout the world," Micron said in a statement.
NYTIMES
