The US gives Huawei its third 90-day support exemption from export ban

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Enlarge / A sign outside Huawai's offices in Santa Clara, California, August 17, 2017. (credit: Getty Images | Smith Collection/Gado )

For six months now, the Trump Administration has banned US companies from doing business with Huawei. Nearly the entire time, there has also been a "temporary general export license" provision that allows current Huawei customers to continue to receive support for existing devices. The original order in May gave existing customers a 90-day license, and it was then extended for another 90 days after that. That leads us to November 18, and today the US has given Huawei a third 90-day support window.

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Huawei is the world's largest telecommunications-equipment manufacturer and second largest smartphone manufacturer after Samsung (and before Apple). The company doesn't have a huge presence in the US, in part because the US House Intelligence Committee has for years flagged Huawei as security threat thanks to its close ties to the Chinese government. The US government has banned federal agencies from using Huawei equipment, and it has used political pressure to shut down consumer deals with US carriers. Huawei has still managed to get some telecommunication equipment in the US, though, particularly thanks to rural carriers in states like Wyoming and Oregon. A coalition of these smaller carriers, the Rural Wireless Association, estimates that replacing Huawei and ZTE equipment could cost its members up to a billion dollars.

“There are enough problems with telephone service in the rural communities—we don’t want to knock them out," Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told Fox Business Network on Friday. "So, one of the main purposes of the temporary general licenses is to let those rural guys continue to operate.”

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