The US's budget chief moves to delay parts of tech ban as Huawei pleads innocence

The US’s acting budget chief requested a delay on portions of the ban which prohibits US-based companies from doing any trade with Huawei in a letter sent to Vice President Mike Pence and nine members of Congress. It also does the same to any US agencies, prohibiting them from doing business with either Huawei or any companies that would do business with Huawei.

That poses a problem for them, as many companies use Huawei products at this time for telecommunications services. It would make it difficult, if not impossible for these agencies to function as normal in the near term. He requested a two-year delay for a smoother transition period.

“While the Administration recognizes the importance of these prohibitions to national security,” the Wall Street Journal quotes the letter as saying, “a number of agencies have heard significant concerns from a wide range of potentially impacted stakeholders who would be affected” by the rules as written.”

At the same time, Huawei continues to plead innocence and invited anyone to peek within its products for spyware.

“We stand naked in front of the world, but we would prefer to do that, because it enables us to improve our products.” Huawei’s cyber-security chief John Suffolk said to UK MPs on Monday, “We want people to find things, whether they find one or one thousand, we don’t care. We are not embarrassed by what people find.”

It is worth noting that while the US hasn’t presented any evidence compelling enough to get its allies to impose any drastic measures on the firm, the Trump administration has indicated that it would be willing to drop the ban in exchange for favourable trade conditions.