U.S imposes new sanctions on Huawei, restricts sale of chips to China

The U.S Commerce Department has announced a fresh sanction on Huawei, the Chinese tech champion.

While announcing this on Monday August 17, 2020, the Department said that foreign semiconductor companies are restricted from selling advanced computer chips to the Chinese company.

The fresh restriction imposed on Monday was an extension of the May ban that had limited companies like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company from trading the HiSilicon-made chips with Huawei.

The recent ban extends to a company like MediaTek, a Taiwan company that saw a 10% plunge in shares on Tuesday, and all other chip designers.

The latest restriction is another indication that the ongoing technology-inclined battle between the U.S. and China has never gone better.

As the struggle between the two countries over who has the highest stake in the future of world technology keeps worsening, TikTok, WeChat which are both Chinese-owned have in the recent weeks faced mounting threat od ban from the U.S President, with Alibaba U.S. operations makes no exception.

Huawei has faced series of allegations from the U.S government on the ground that it constitutes security threats to the United States as the China government could spy on Americans via the company.

However, the company has refuted the allegations but admitted to how hard it has been hit by series of restrictions from the U.S. government.

Andy Purdy for Huawei USA chief security officer, while speaking to CNN Business about the restrictions said,

“We took a hit of about $12 billion in 2019 in our revenue, and we may take a hit again, but we are committed to the long term, and we have the capabilities and resources to adjust over time.

“We are privately owned, we have time, and if we take a hit in revenue that’s fine. We can bounce back as we continue to do,” added Andy Purdy.