Trump Offers Hope to Huawei's US Suppliers

US companies that count Huawei as a customer can breathe a small sigh of relief this weekend following reports that US President Donald Trump has signaled an end to the ban on the sale of US technology to the Chinese vendor, after his most recent meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The reports, including this one from the Straits Times, followed a meeting between Trump and Xi in Japan on the sidelines of the G20 summit during which the two leaders agreed to resume trade talks. The reports cite the US President as saying, "US companies can sell their equipment to Huawei."

But there was a slight sting in the tail. "We're talking about equipment where there's no great national security problem with it."

That, of course, could be interpreted in any way -- but the door is at least open to concessions and even the potential removal of Huawei from the US Commerce Dept.'s Entity List that identifies companies that cannot be sold US goods and services.

Huawei had been expected to be part of the discussions: See Huawei Ban at Heart of US/China Trade Talk Pitch – WSJ for more background and links to previous articles on the topic.

— Ray Le Maistre, Editor-in-Chief, Light Reading