Washington | The United States announced Monday to toughen its sanctions against the Chinese telecom giant Huawei, extending them to 38 of its subsidiaries, in order to limit their access to American technologies, according to a statement from the United States Department of Commerce.
Donald Trump called the Chinese group a “spy” in a telephone interview on Fox News.
Donald Trump’s administration criticizes Huawei for using its international subsidiaries to circumvent sanctions.
The United States believes the group poses a security risk to the country because of its ties to the Chinese government, which Huawei denies.
Huawei and its subsidiaries have “increased their efforts to obtain advanced semiconductors developed or produced from American software and technologies in order to achieve the political objectives of the Chinese Communist Party,” according to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, cited in the press release.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the Trump administration viewed Huawei as “an armed wing of the Chinese Communist Party’s watch,” according to a separate statement.
These new sanctions were imposed “to protect the national security of the United States, the privacy of our citizens, and the integrity of our 5G infrastructure in the face of the nefarious influence of Beijing,” he added.
Washington wants to prevent Huawei and other Chinese suppliers from dominating the new technology market and the 5G network.
In the viewfinder for a year and a half of the Trump administration, Huawei is thus on the American blacklist in order to prevent it from acquiring “made in the USA” technologies essential to its phones.
The fronts have multiplied between China and the United States since a historic trade agreement signed in January, which was to calm relations.
“China has done terrible things to us. They could have stopped. They stopped this disease, I call it the Chinese virus. They prevented it from expanding into China, but not from reaching the United States and the rest of the world, ”Donald Trump lamented on Monday.