After US President Donald Trump signed an executive order banning Huawei from doing business with the US-based companies, companies like Google, Intel, and Qualcomm halted their business with the Chinese giant. While there’s no sign of reaching an agreement anytime soon, there’s some good news for the company caught in this US-China trade war.
The US Commerce Department has effectively delayed some of the consequences of the executive order by 90 days starting today. During this period, Huawei will be able to purchase American-made goods “in order to maintain existing networks and provide software updates to existing Huawei handsets.”
However, the report adds that the company is still prohibited from buying American parts and components to manufacture new products without license approvals. And it’s highly unlikely that Huawei will get the license approval for new products.
The new authorization for the company is intended to give telecommunications operators that rely on Huawei equipment time to make other arrangements, said U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross in a statement. The U.S. Commerce Department said it will also evaluate whether to extend the exemptions beyond 90 days.
The extension also means that the Android license revocation has been put on hold for 90 days. During this time, Huawei can certify OS updates with Google for existing handsets. But it remains to be seen if this time frame is long enough to ensure certifications for the new Android Q updates for Huawei’s existing handsets.
The company still cannot launch new smartphones that haven’t been already certified by Google. Huawei’s sub-brand Honor is holding a launch event for the Honor 20 series today. The upcoming phones have likely procured the required license, so there’s no issue with that.
Also Read: Huawei vs US — All you need to know about this trade war
Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei said the temporary reprieve move bore little meaning for the company as it had been making preparations for such a scenario. He added that Huawei was at odds with the U.S. government, not U.S. firms and said that Huawei is capable of making the chips it buys from the United States though that does not mean it will stop buying American chips.
