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US Government Staff Told To Treat Huawei as Blacklisted (reuters.com) 80

Posted by msmash from the tussle-continues dept.
A senior U.S. official told the Commerce Department's enforcement staff this week that China's Huawei should still be treated as blacklisted, days after U.S. President Donald Trump sowed confusion with a vow to ease a ban on sales to the firm. From a report: Trump surprised markets on Saturday by promising Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Japan that he would allow U.S. companies to sell products to Huawei Technologies. In May, the company was added to the so-called Entity List, which bans American firms from selling to it without special permission, as punishment for actions against U.S. national security interests. Trump's announcement on Saturday -- an olive branch to Beijing to revive stalled trade talks -- was cheered by U.S. chipmakers eager to maintain sales to Huawei, the world's largest telecoms equipment maker and a key U.S. customer.

But Trump's comments also spawned confusion among industry players and government officials struggling to understand what Huawei policy he had unveiled. In an email to enforcement staff on Monday that was seen by Reuters, John Sonderman, Deputy Director of the Office of Export Enforcement, in the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), sought to clarify how agents should approach license requests by firms seeking approval to sell to Huawei.
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US Government Staff Told To Treat Huawei as Blacklisted More

US Government Staff Told To Treat Huawei as Blacklisted

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  • ntr

  • I was willing to give the US the benefit.... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mark-t ( 151149 ) <markt AT nerdflat DOT com> on Wednesday July 03, 2019 @10:18AM (#58866958) Journal

    ... of the doubt before, but lately I am increasingly beginning to suspect that this whole thing is actually all about negotiating a trade deal with China, and no sooner will the ink be dry on a trade deal than somehow, quite mysteriously, Huawei will cease to be a problem for the US.

    And of course, all of this will be done at the expense of Canada's own relationship with China, because after all, who else really cares about that, right?

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 )

      I'm not giving anyone the benefit of the doubt. Not the US, not China, not Huawei, and certainly not Trump.

      The US and China both engage in espionage. It's not a secret.

      Nothing we've seen means anything concrete. I want to see evidence of Huawei being involved with spying. Not seeing it doesn't even make the claim a lie, it just makes me uninterested in the argument.

      Evidence or bust. Or not even bust, just evidence or meh.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        We need to move past the point o needing to trust. It's a waste of time, even if we had the time and capability to audit every line of code, every part on the motherboard, confirm the silicon matches the HDL code... There would still be zero day flaws. We saw that with openssh.

        Instead we need need to build systems where compromised parts are impossible to exploit, at least to compromise in a way that is undetectable. And then make sure that the traffic we send over those nodes is encrypted anyway, so even i

    • Re:I was willing to give the US the benefit.... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Dorianny ( 1847922 ) on Wednesday July 03, 2019 @10:30AM (#58867008) Journal
      Unfortunately Trump is too stupid to recognize when he is being set-up. Xi told Trump he just wanted U.S companies to be able to sell a few chips to Huwaei and Trump said "Sure, I don't see a problem with that," not realizing that it will give the world the impression that the U.S took Huwaei hostage as a negotiating tactic

    • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday July 03, 2019 @10:39AM (#58867066)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • What you're seeing is not some eleven dimensional chess negotiating here

        I'd be impressed if he could manage 2d checkers.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gtall ( 79522 )

      Trump already said (approx. a month or so ago) that a trade deal could leave Huawei off the hook. As soon as he said that, he shot his "negotiating position" in the head. Xi is going to play him just like Lil' Kimmy and Netanyahu and Putin, he's a rube and these fellows know it.

  • Trump's position is evolving... Stand by.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bobbied ( 2522392 ) on Wednesday July 03, 2019 @10:22AM (#58866978)

    Look, Trump is in the midst of negotiating a trade deal with China (the real owner of Huawei) and as such, his specific public position is evolving. This is because he's using the western press to communicate with China as well as diplomatic channels, applying fear and uncertainty to drive short term changes in our trade with China. So he tweets stuff for effect then his press secretary reiterates or walks back the tweets when quizzed by the press who are reacting to the frenzy surrounding his tweets. Like it or not, this seems to be by design, and is being done to get attention, exercise some control over the day's narrative and keep folks talking about the things Trump chooses. He's playing everybody.

    IF it matters to you, I suggest you wait for the dealing to be done and the agreement to be reached before you make any decisions involving Huawei or other Chinese related goods and services. Once the deal is hammered out, things will calm down and the on and off nature of Huawei will become less of an issue. In the mean time, just filter everything you see and hear though the "It's an election year" and "Trump is tweeting again" mind set. Don't be too reactive, just let things happen and wait and see.

  • President can't unilaterally override the EAR (Score:5, Informative)

    by mysidia ( 191772 ) on Wednesday July 03, 2019 @10:24AM (#58866984)

    The export laws are an Act of Congress. The US president does not determine US Law.

    The list they are discussing... the "Entity List" is a list of entities for which are deemed "High Risk" for violating
    certain US laws or acting against the interests of the US -- Special Licensing by OFAC is required
    in order to export or sell/transfer goods to anyone on the entities list, whether that entity is Inside or Outside the US,
    And the word of the president alone does not affect the entities list ---- The entities list is updated through regulatory action of the BIS,
    which becomes published in the federal register, such as: this action [federalregister.gov] that added Huawei and Huawei affiliates in various other countries to the list.

    The only way other companies may lawfully "treat them as if taken off the list" and export to them without a special license:
    is if a new regulatory action is undertaken by the BIS after Huawei cured their issues.

    Adding them to the list cited rationales such as, Huawei themselves are alleged to have violated the EAR by attempting to circumvent export laws and transfer goods from a US supplier to entities on the list without obtaining the required OFAC license themselves:

    ...there is reasonable cause to believe that Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. (Huawei) has been involved in activities determined to be contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States. To illustrate, Huawei has been indicted in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York on 13 counts of violating U.S. law (Superseding Indictment), including violations of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), by knowingly and willfully causing the export, reexport, sale and supply, directly and indirectly, of goods, technology and services (banking and other financial services) from the United States to Iran and the government of Iran without obtaining a license from the Department of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), as required by OFAC's Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations (31 CFR part 560), and conspiracy to violate IEEPA by knowingly and willfully conspiring to cause the export, reexport, sale and supply, directly and indirectly, of goods, technology and services (banking and other financial services) from the United States to Iran and the government of Iran without obtaining a license from OFAC ....

    Huawei participated along with certain affiliates in the alleged criminal violations of U.S. law, including one or more non-U.S. affiliates. The Superseding Indictment also alleges that Huawei and affiliates acting on Huawei's behalf engaged in a series of deceptive and obstructive acts designed to evade U.S. law and to avoid detection by U.S. law enforcement....

    In light of the foregoing, Huawei and sixty-eight non-U.S. affiliates of Huawei raise sufficient concern that prior review of exports, reexports, or transfers (in-country) of items subject to the EAR involving these entities, and the possible imposition of license conditions or license denials on shipments to these entities, will enhance BIS's ability to prevent activities contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States.

    For all of the entities added to the Entity List in this final rule, unless authorized by the Savings Clause in this final rule, BIS imposes a license requirement for all items subject to the EAR and a license review policy of presumption of denial.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by gtall ( 79522 )

      Yes, however the BIS is also open to coercion. There's nothing that Trump won't corrupt.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mysidia ( 191772 )

        Yes, however the BIS is also open to coercion. There's nothing that Trump won't corrupt.

        It is true that the president can affect what the BIS does, but all I'm saying is that the president's words don't
        have the affect of law change to Huawei's status on the list at least there is no immediate affect, and the president does
        not have the power to just write an executive order to supersede a regulation and take Huawei off the list.
        Nothing changes until the president goes through some kind of process or giv

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      What are you even talking about? The BIS ability to regulate the EAR list IS AN EXECUTIVE POWER. They determine who is on and off the list, not Congress. Congress just made a law that allowed BIS (who is DIRECTED BY THE DEPT. OF COMMERCE) to make such a list.

      This also has very little to do with whether Huawei is a "security" risk that intelligence is talking about. Intelligence was not talking about Huawei potentially selling junk to other countries. They were saying that Huawei was going to snoop on a

      • Any action that requires being published in the National Register is a regulatory act and cannot be arbitrary or capricious.

        Other things than that the Executive can just do whatever they want. Like ordering a military strike. The President can blow up whatever he wants, and he can even invade whatever he wants, at least for a few weeks. If Congress doesn't agree, he has to withdraw, but he can always just attack something else.

        But regulations aren't like that; they're not political whims. That's the definit

  • should still be treated as blacklisted

    Simple... the president has made a promise claim about what he will seek to have done in the future, but the change has not been executed yet.

    If the president intends to take Huawei off the list, then some major paperwork needs to be done to make that take affect, and in the mean time until an official update is published -- it is still unlawful to transfer goods to the listed entities without obtaining a special OFAC license. Even if and after they DO take Hu

    • any person or company that transferred goods to them during the time period when they were effectively on the list will still have committed a violation and be subject to the possibility of penalties and sactions themselves including the chance of being added to the entity list themself.

      I just came back from the year 2035 and I have big news. The San Juan Freedivers won the Superbowl, and Eric Trump is still on the entity list. He's believed to be hiding somewhere in the Judea Protectorate, but the UN insists he slipped over the border into the Sinai Exclusion Zone.

  • Something I noticed recently (Score:3)

    by sandbagger ( 654585 ) on Wednesday July 03, 2019 @11:43AM (#58867478)

    I was at a social event where there were a certain number of military people. What I noticed was that they all had flip phones. I couldn't see the OS or brand but ... flip phones? The devices were new as well, not hand-me-downs.

    • People who care about opsec use phones as phones, and computers only when secure. They probably all have tablets that are not phones that they use for apping.

  • Trump was non-committal. Media speculated. (Score:3)

    by poity ( 465672 ) on Wednesday July 03, 2019 @12:13PM (#58867616)

    Full transcript of the press conference from 4 days ago: https://www.whitehouse.gov/bri... [whitehouse.gov]
    He rambled as he typically does, but through it all he refused to confirm that he will remove Huawei from the Entity List, saying that negotiations over that subject will come later.

    Q: Are you saying you’re taking Huawei off the Commerce Department entity list?

    THE PRESIDENT: No, not at all. No, no. We’re going to be talking about Huawei, but we are going to be supplying equipment from our companies. Our companies make billions and billions of dollars’ worth of equipment. But we are not discussing Huawei with President Xi yet. I want to see — before we start getting into that, I want to see where we end up. We have to — we have a national security problem, which to me is paramount. Very important.

    Q: But are you taking Huawei off the Commerce Department entity list?

    THE PRESIDENT: We’re talking about that. We have a meeting on that tomorrow or Tuesday.

    Before that exchange, he talked about the billions in products sold by US companies to Huawei, but does not make clear whether he's referring to the immediate future following some decision he had just made or to the fact that US companies are indeed currently selling to Huawei in a limited capacity within a 90-day window granted by the Department of Commerce. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/0... [nytimes.com]

    You can see that he didn't actually "vow to ease a ban on sales to the firm" as it has been reported, it was just speculation from media trying to grab something solid from a non-committal (and rambling) Trump. Also, the phrase "Trump surprised markets on Saturday" is kind of weird. One wonders which markets the reporters are referring to as nearly all the exchanges are closed on the weekend, and futures only start trading on Sunday evening.

  • I can understand not wanting Huawei gear in US networks etc because of the spying/security risk. But how exactly is it a national security risk if Huawei is buying chips from Qualcomm or Android software from Google or whatever and then putting that stuff into devices like phones or network equipment?

    • Because it helps them to be able to buy stuff. If they're a security risk, and we do things to help them, they're more able to do whatever things make them a risk.

      It is like if you say something horrible in a restaurant, you might get kicked out. You might not only be told not to do the thing that got you in trouble, you might no longer be welcome on the property at all.

      That is what the Entity List is like. You got kicked out of America, and anybody that tries to sneak you in the side door is also getting k

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