Last month, Huawei was added to the US Department of Commerce"s "Entity List" - effectively banning it from from buying any material from US suppliers without government approval. From losing Google support for its devices, to admitting it could lose $30 billion in revenue due to the added restrictions, it has been a rough couple of months for the Chinese company since then. However, there could be some light at the end of the tunnel.
At the G20 summit being held in Japan, US President Donald Trump and Chinese Premier Xi Jinping have agreed to restart trade talks between both countries. Furthermore, Trump has explicitly stated that US companies will now be allowed to sell their products to Huawei.
Although companies like Microsoft and Intel had committed to supporting software on Huawei devices, there was still plenty of uncertainty surrounding the future of the Chinese firm in the hardware department. Now, however, it looks as though some of these concerns might have been mitigated. Not only did Trump acknowledge that US companies "were not exactly happy that they couldn"t sell [to Huawei]", he went on to say that a "tremendous amount" of product was previously sold to Huawei by them, and that they "will keep selling that product".
While there were discussions surrounding the Chinese company, the situation surrounding Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou - currently detained in Canada and facing extradition to the US - wasn"t brought up.
It will be interesting to see how Huawei reacts to the developments following Trump"s statement. At least for now, the company will still remain on the Entity List though an imminent removal could be at hand. Either way, it is fair to say that many Huawei users will be breathing a sigh of relief if the situation continues to de-escalate, now that initial steps towards removal of the trade ban have been taken.
Source: CNN International (Twitter)