US lawmakers take another run at keeping out Huawei's 5G gear

WASHINGTON – Rep. Mike Gallagher and Senator Tom Cotton are introducing bills in the US House and Senate aimed at cutting off Huawei's use of any part of the US banking and financial system.

The bills seek to "add foreign companies producing 5G technology, like Huawei, to the U.S. Treasury Department's Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) List should they engage in economic or industrial espionage or sanctions violations," according to a press release from Rep. Gallagher's office.

Being listed on the Treasury Department's SDN list makes it nearly impossible for a company or individual to do business using US dollars.

"It's clear that in order to protect global 5G networks, we need a full-court press against malevolent actors like Huawei," said Rep. Gallagher, in a press release. "It's time to go on the offensive by cutting Huawei out of the US banking system."

The House bill is known as the Neutralizing Emerging Threats from Wireless OEMs Receiving direction from Kleptocracies and Surveillance states (NETWORKS) Act and it does have bipartisan support. The Senate version of the bill is led by Senate Democrats Chuck Schumer and Chris Van Hollen and Republican Senator Rick Scott.

Brand new 5G networks are definitely in the crosshairs here. For all of its bluster, Congress still hasn't been able to fully extract Huawei out of US networks, so the bill's authors still intend to let Huawei support its current customers.

The US government's most recent attempt at paying carriers to remove Huawei gear is throwing around dollars and not making real change. The NETWORKS bill would exempt transactions involving existing 3G or 4G networks "in order to minimize disruption to global networks," the release said.

— Phil Harvey, US Bureau Chief, Light Reading