Biden admin defends approval of automatic chip licenses for Huawei



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(Reuters) – The Biden administration, which has come under fire this week for approving auto chip licenses for Huawei, said it had not changed the policy of restricting sales of goods and technology to the company China that had been put in place during the Trump presidency.

“The policy has not been relaxed or changed,” a Commerce Department spokesperson said.

The comments came in response to Senator Marco Rubio’s requests https://www.reuters.com/technology/us-senator-rubio-demands-answers-huaweis-auto-chip-approvals-2021-08-26 that officials Americans explain why they approved hundreds of millions of dollars in auto chip sales to the company, as reported by Reuters https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/exclusive-us-approves- licenses-huawei-buy- auto-chips-sources-2021-08-25 this week.

Rubio called the move “yet another example of President Biden’s failure to protect the economic and national security of the United States.”

Huawei was placed on a U.S. commerce blacklist in 2019 after the Trump administration said it was acting contrary to national security and foreign policy interests.

The so-called “entity list” prevents suppliers from selling US products and technologies to the world’s largest telecommunications equipment maker. The Commerce Department is prohibited from disclosing license approvals or denials, the spokesperson said.

But some sales were allowed and others denied as the United States intensified its crackdown on the company and expanded American authority to demand licenses for sales of semiconductors made abroad with American technology. .

An August 2020 rule said that licenses for products with 5G capabilities would likely be rejected, but sales of less sophisticated technologies would be decided on a case-by-case basis.

Under the Trump administration, $ 87 billion in licenses for Huawei were approved after it was blacklisted, but $ 119 billion was denied when the presidency ended in January, according to a Commerce Department document viewed by Reuters.

“The Biden administration has not changed the regulatory restrictions imposed on Huawei and its affiliates on the entity list imposed in 2019 or 2020 or the policy to implement these restrictions developed under the Trump administration,” he said. said the spokesperson for the Commerce Department.

Other Chinese congressional hawks have also criticized auto chip approvals, with Mike Rogers, chief Republican of the armed services committee, urging that the licenses be revoked.

(Reporting by Karen Freifeld; editing by Edward Tobin)

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