What you need to know
- Huawei is challenging the former Trump administration's declaration that the company is a national security threat.
- The ruling is seen as "arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of discretion and not supported by substantial evidence."
- Biden's Commerce secretary pick has previously stated that she sees no reason to remove Huawei from the Entity List.
The latest development of the drawn-out saga between Huawei and the United States government sees the Chinese smartphone manufacturer filing a lawsuit, claiming that the FCC exceeded its mandate by designating it as a national security threat. According to Bloomberg, Huawei also feels that not only does the FCC lack "substantial evidence", but it also did not give the company a chance to defend itself.
The order on review potentially impacts the financial interests of the telecommunications industry as a whole, including manufacturers, end-users, and service providers in a broad range of industries, such as the internet, cellular and landline telephone, and similar telecommunications applications.
Huawei has been in a back and forth tussle with the U.S. since 2018 over claims that the company provided backdoors within its technology for the Chinese government to take advantage of and spy on consumers. The company has vehemently denied this and has previously attempted to challenge U.S. decisions against it, to no avail. The Trump administration did not back down, blocking U.S. companies from working with and supplying any tech to Huawei. This has had a negative effect on the company, which is unable to obtain chips to power the best Huawei phones you can't buy. The FCC has also not backed down, despite recent changes in its leadership:
Last year the FCC issued a final designation identifying Huawei as a national security threat based on a substantial body of evidence developed by the FCC and numerous U.S. national security agencies. We will continue to defend that decision.
Huawei has been hoping that the new Biden administration would be more lenient with the company than Trump was. That might not be in the cards, though, if President Biden's nominee for Commerce secretary, Gina Raimondo, has her way. She recently went on record stating that she sees "no reason" to remove Huawei from the Entity List.
