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| Huawei suppliers have obtained billions of dollars in licenses |
Documents released by Congress show that suppliers of Chinese telecom giant Huawei and leading Chinese chip maker SMIC received billions of dollars in licenses between November and April despite being blacklisted for US trade. They sell goods and technology.
According to Reuters documents, 113 export licenses worth $61 billion have been approved to supply suppliers with products for Huawei.
In addition, the institute has approved an additional 188 licenses valued at approximately $42 billion.
The data also shows that more than 9 out of 10 license applications were submitted to SMIC vendors and 69% of shipment applications were approved by Huawei during the same period.
The US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee voted on a motion by prominent GOP member Michael McCaul to release the clearance statement it received from the Commerce Department in May.
These numbers have angered Chinese hawks in Washington, who have worked together to prevent Chinese companies from accessing the latest American technology.
Republican Senator Marco Rubio told Reuters he believes President Joe Biden should explain why the company continues to benefit from the waivers.
He said this is just another example of President Biden not taking the economic and security threats to the Chinese Communist Party seriously.
He added, "It is clearly in our national interest to increase transparency and public oversight over how our country releases its technologies to adversaries."
However, the Commerce Department said that publishing abusive information about licensing passes could politicize the licensing process and distort government decisions about national security.
He noted that the approved license application does not represent actual deliveries and that about half of the licenses are in use. He added that license applications involving Huawei and SMIC will be handled according to guidelines set by the Trump administration and maintained by the Biden administration.
Huawei is still on the blacklist
A former senior Trump administration official agreed with the agency's view. "This very short period of licensing activity is not a definitive window into the licensing process for Huawei and SMIC," he said. Documents published like this seem designed to mislead people and grab the headlines.
He said the goal of preventing companies from acquiring the latest technology without affecting exports of other US products had worked.
For reasons of national security, these companies were blacklisted in May 2019. This forced US and other suppliers to obtain special permits to ship goods.
SMIC was included in the so-called Entity List in December 2020. This is because it is afraid that it will introduce advanced technology to military users.
Most permits issued do not allow the transportation of sensitive materials. Of the 113 licenses approved for mobile phone manufacturers during this period. 80 licenses are used for non-sensitive products and licenses are only required because the recipient is blacklisted.
Under the Trump administration, the mobile phone company was granted an $87 billion license after being blacklisted.