US revokes certain licences for suppliers to sell tech to Huawei

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON • The Trump administration notified Huawei suppliers, including chipmaker Intel, that it is revoking certain licences to sell to the Chinese company and intends to reject dozens of other applications to supply the telecommunications firm, people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The action - likely the last against Huawei Technologies under Republican President Donald Trump - is the latest in a long-running effort to weaken the world's largest telecoms equipment-maker, which Washington sees as a national security threat.

The notices came amid a flurry of American efforts against China in the final days of Mr Trump's administration. Democrat Joe Biden will take the oath of office as President tomorrow.

Huawei and Intel declined to comment. The Commerce Department said it could not comment on specific licensing decisions, but said it continues to work with other agencies to "consistently" apply licensing policies in a way that "protects US national security and foreign policy interests".

In an e-mail, seen by Reuters, documenting the actions, the Semiconductor Industry Association said last Friday that the Commerce Department had issued "intents to deny a significant number of licence requests for exports to Huawei and a revocation of at least one previously issued licence".

Sources familiar with the situation, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said there was more than one revocation. One of the sources said eight licences were yanked from four companies.

The news triggered moderate profit-taking in some semiconductor-related shares in Asia.

South Korea's Samsung Electronics fell 1.5 per cent while Japan's Advantest shed 1.5 per cent and Tokyo Electron lost 0.8 per cent.

Japanese memory chipmaker Kioxia had at least one licence revoked, two of the sources said.

The firm, formerly known as Toshiba Memory, said it does not "disclose business details regarding specific products or customers".

The semiconductor association's e-mail said the actions spanned a "broad range" of products in the industry and asked companies whether they had received notices.

The e-mail noted that firms had been waiting "many months" for licensing decisions, and with less than a week left in the administration, dealing with the denials was a challenge.

A spokesman for the semiconductor group did not respond to a request for comment.

Companies that received the "intent to deny" notices have 20 days to respond, and the Commerce Department has 45 days to advise them of any change in a decision or it becomes final.

Companies would then have another 45 days to appeal.

The United States put Huawei on a Commerce Department "entity list" in May 2019, restricting suppliers from selling US goods and technology to the Chinese firm.

But some sales were allowed and others denied while the US intensified its crackdown on the company, in part by expanding US authority to require licences for sales of semiconductors made abroad with American technology.

Before the latest action, some 150 licences were pending for US$120 billion (S$160 billion) worth of goods and technology, which had been held up because various US agencies could not agree on whether they should be granted, a person familiar with the matter said.

Another US$280 billion of licence applications for goods and technology for Huawei still have not been processed, the source said, but now are more likely to be denied.

Intel has received licences from the US authorities to continue supplying certain products to Huawei, an Intel spokesman said in September last year.

An August rule said that products with 5G capabilities were likely to be rejected, but sales of less sophisticated technology would be decided on a case-by-case basis.

REUTERS