US Treasury Secretary calls on suppliers to apply for exemption licenses to resume sales to Huawei

According to people familiar with the matter, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin recently called on Huawei's U.S. suppliers to apply for exemption licenses to resume sales to Huawei. Market analysts believe that this development reflects the recent reversal of the Trump administration's tough stance on Huawei, and that U.S. officials are still divided over the extent to which the United States should try to reach an agreement with the Beijing government.

When U.S. President Trump attended the G20 summit at the end of June, he held talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping and announced after the meeting that U.S. companies would be able to sell products to Huawei.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross responded on Tuesday (9th) that the Department of Commerce will grant licenses to U.S. companies to ship to Huawei as long as they do not pose a threat to national security. However, he also said that Huawei will remain on the Entity List and the license applications of U.S. companies may be rejected.

Foreign media reports pointed out that Mnuchin's move is likely to put pressure on the U.S. Department of Commerce to issue exemption licenses to show goodwill to accelerate the restart of Sino-U.S. trade negotiations. Mnuchin and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer held talks with senior Chinese officials by phone on Tuesday, but no new face-to-face meeting plans were arranged.

U.S.-China trade talks reached an impasse in early May. A few days later, the U.S. Commerce Department added Huawei to the Entity List on national security grounds, prohibiting U.S. companies from supplying Huawei with U.S. technology products without a license.

Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei said last month that the U.S. move could cause Huawei's revenue to fall by $30 billion over the next two years. Many U.S. technology giants that supply Huawei have also been affected, including the chip industry and companies such as Google.