The United States President, Donald Trump has extended his executive order banning US companies from working or buying telecommunications equipment from companies it considers a national security risk until May 2021.
Though the ban doesn’t call out specific companies, it is however believed the ban is being used to gradually bring to halt US operations with Chinese companies like Huawei and ZTE, which can no longer sell products in the US or work with companies like Google or ARM for critical software and licenses.
The US government had a year ago issued an original executive order barring US companies from doing business with Huawei due to national security concerns about the Chinese firm supplying equipment for network infrastructure (particularly as the US undergoes its ongoing rollout for 5G).
But since the order was issued in May 2019, the full ban hasn’t taken effect yet. While Huawei hasn’t been able to work with companies like Google on new devices, the company has gotten a series of temporary general licenses from the Commerce Department that have allowed it to still support existing hardware with software updates.
Things might now change: after receiving extensions in May, August, November, and March, the most recent 45-day extension for the temporary license agreement is about to expire on May 15th. Neither Huawei nor the Commerce Department has indicated yet whether another extension of the temporary license will be granted.
