In final act, outgoing Trump administration targets Huawei suppliers

As president-elect Joe Biden gets set to take oath as the next US president, the Trump administration is revoking certain licenses of companies to sell semiconductor products to Chinese firm Huawei, reports said.

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The outgoing administration also intends to reject dozens of applications that supply to the Chinese telecommunications firm. The US government views Huawei as a national security threat.

The semiconductor industry association said in an email the US commerce department had issued intents to deny a significant number of license requests for exports to Huawei and a revocation of at least one previously issued license.

The action includes a broad range of products in the semiconductor industry. The companies which have received notices reportedly have twenty days to respond. The commerce department has 45 days to advise them of any change, the companies then would have another 45 days to appeal.

The United States had put Huawei on the commerce department entity list in May 2019 with suppliers restricted from selling US. goods and technology. The latest decision comes after half a dozen meetings were held by the departments of commerce, state, defence and energy since January 4, reports indicated.

The decision comes after the Trump administration appointed Corey Stewart in the commerce department.

It is not the first time the US has targeted Huawei. The company's Chief Financial Officer(CFO) Meng Wanzhou, 48, was arrested in Canada in December 2018 on a US warrant. 

Reports claimed US prosecutors have been discussing a deal with Meng's lawyers who faces bank fraud charges for allegedly misleading HSBC Holdings Plc about Huawei Technologies Co Ltd's business dealings in Iran, which is under US sanctions.

In August last year, the Trump administration had added "Huawei affiliates" to its "entity list" asserting that the Chinese company was using international subsidiaries to circumvent sanctions which prevents export of US-based technology.

The list included 38 affiliates in 21 countries which formed part of the US blacklist.