The U.S. Commerce Department has started approving some suppliers’ applications for licenses to do business with China’s Huawei Technologies Co., partially reopening access to one of the biggest buyers of U.S. technology.
“We’ve had 290-something requests for specific licenses,” Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in an interview with Fox Business Network late Tuesday. “We’ve now been starting to send out the 20-day intent-to-deny letters and some approvals.”
In May, the U.S. added Huawei to what’s known as the entity list in an effort to block U.S. companies from selling components to China’s largest technology company, which it accuses of being a threat to America’s national security. Huawei has denied those claims.
The listing, which requires American firms to obtain a government license in order to sell to blacklisted firms, has hurt some U.S. companies’ earnings and caused confusion as to what their relationship with their Chinese customer will be going forward.
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