Lately, China’s biggest telecommunication technology firm Huawei has been receiving one turn down after the other from governments across the world. The company can trace back the root of this unfortunate turn of event to the United States where last year several security chiefs raised concern about the Huawei telecommunication infrastructure.
Ever since many governments, particularly those in the West, have either backtracked or paused any telecommunication upgrading they were to undertake using the Huawei infrastructure. To make matters worse, the company’s CFO has been arrested and charged with wire fraud and conspiracy. At the same time, there are allegations that the company stole technology for ‘diamond glass’ screens.
Now, a new report by Politico claims that the U.S. President Donald Trump is prepping up to sign an executive order banning all carriers in the country from using any telecommunication equipment. Though the executive order is a blanket ban on all Chinese telecommunication technology firms, it doesn’t take a genius to see the bull’s eye is on the back of Huawei.
President Trump is expected to sign the executive order as soon as this week. When he does, no carrier in the U.S. will be allowed to use telecommunication equipment and infrastructure from any of the Chinese firms. Experts see the two biggest targets being Huawei and ZTE.
Politico claims its sources say the White House is pushing to ban Chinese telecommunication technology firms from accessing the U.S. market before the kickstart of Mobile World Congress set to start on Feb 25 in Barcelona.
The White House has gotten allies from the U.S. Congress in its push to ban networking infrastructure from the Chinese companies. The two government bodies have been pushing for this ban for some months now.
The proposal to ban Chinese firms was first included in the 2019 U.S. national defense budget. That was later followed up by a bipartisan group of lawmakers writing the ‘Defending U.S. Government Communications Act’ that is still in committee. Then the White House took up the matter and started drafting up the said executive order.
The main target of this executive order is on banning the use of Huawei and ZTE network infrastructure on local telecommunications carriers’ network in the U.S. So, we do not expect the sale of Huawei and ZTE devices such as phones, tablets, and laptops to be affected. Though there is a big risk of them being affected indirectly, given consumers are probably going to start thinking twice about purchasing them.