Huawei Gets Yet Another 3-Month Extension From US

The U.S. Department of Commerce has granted three months extension to Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. (SHE: 002502) to conduct business with the U.S. companies.

What Happened

The expiry date of the temporary general license has been extended to Feb. 16, 2020, from the previous deadline of Nov.18.

President Trump planned to give only a two-week reprieve to the company, a Reuters report suggested, but ran into bureaucratic hurdles.

The extension comes at a time when the Trump administration is struggling to come to an agreement with China on the phase one of their trade deal.

Huawei told Reuters the extension wouldn’t impact their business either way. According to the company, putting it on the entity list has harmed the U.S. more.

"This has done significant economic harm to the American companies with which Huawei does business."

A Ban That Hasn’t Happened

The Commerce Department put Huawei on its “entity list” in May, which bans U.S. companies from selling products to the Chinese tech giant.

Huawei was granted a temporary general license for three months immediately afterwards that eased some of these restrictions — allowing it to purchase equipment required to maintain its existing services.

The license was extended for another three months in August. 

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told Fox Business at the time the extension was granted because many rural telecom companies in the U.S. were still dependent on Huawei for their operations. He reiterated the same stance in an official statement on Monday.

The Federal Communications Commission proposed to ban all rural carriers benefiting from its Universal Service Fund (USF) from using any Huawei equipment in October. The federal agency said that it will provide financial assistance to help the carriers switch to “more trusted suppliers.”