Huawei Android ban could still be on as US government says its still blacklisted

The US Huawei ban may not be coming to an end any time soon after all following new reports that the Chinese phone giant is still under severe restrictions.

According to Reuters, staff at the US Commerce Department enforcement team have been told by senior officials that Huawei should still be treated as blacklisted, and US companies remain restricted in dealing with them.

This comes despite President Trump appearing to lighten his stance on the Chinese giant at the G20 summit in Japan just a matter of days ago. 

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Barred

On Saturday, Trump had promised Chinese President Xi Jinping that he would allow U.S. companies to resume selling products to Huawei, which had been under severe restrictions.

"US companies can sell their equipment to Huawei," Trump had stated, specifying "I'm talking about equipment where there is no great national emergency problem". 

The President also seemed to indicate that Huawei would play a significant role in the newly-resuming trade talks between the US and China, saying, "We're going to work with China on where we left off."

Huawei was added to the Entity List by the Trump administration back in May following ongoing allegations of corroboration with the Chinese government, as well as reportedly working with Iran and North Korea.

The email seen by Reuters was sent by John Sonderman, Deputy Director of the Office of Export Enforcement in the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS). 

It looks to clear up how its agents should approach license requests by firms seeking approval to sell to Huawei, noting that  although all applications should be considered on merit, they should also include the caveat that “This party is on the Entity List". 

These applications would also be subject to the “presumption of denial” licensing policy applied to blacklisted companies.

In a statement to Reuters, Huawei reported that company founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei had said Trump’s G20 statements were “good for American companies”.

“Huawei is also willing to continue to buy products from American companies. But we don’t see much impact on what we are currently doing. We will still focus on doing our own job right,” the company said.

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• Via Reuters