By now the trials of Huawei are well known in terms of its entity list status with the United States. That has not changed, as American firms are still unable to sell equipment to the Chinese outfit, but now Huawei has suffered another blow following the Secure Equipment Act.

This Act was signed in by US President Joe Biden this week, and it effectively bars the likes of Huawei and ZTE from receiving network licences.

As Reuters reports, it now means the US Federal Communication Commission (FCC) can no longer accept applications from companies that are deemed to pose a security threat, which Huawei is categorised as by the United States, despite a lack of concrete evidence to support the claims.

“We have already determined that this gear poses an unacceptable risk to our national security, so closing what I have called the ‘Huawei loophole’ is an appropriate action for us to take,” said FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr last month.

It is therefore unsurprising to hear that the bill passed by a 420-4 House vote and approved unanimously by the US Senate.

“Once we have determined that Huawei or other gear poses an unacceptable national security risk, it makes no sense to allow that exact same equipment to be purchased and inserted into our communications networks as long as federal dollars are not involved,” Carr noted earlier in the year.

It therefore means that any hopes of getting Huawei hardware into the US to support any network’s 5G rollout is all but dashed at this stage.

Naturally, Chinese officials are less than pleased with the decision.

“The United States, without any evidence, still abuses national security and state power to suppress Chinese companies,” Zhao Lijian, a spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry, told Reuters.

In June, Huawei the proposed FCC revision for the Secure Equipment Act, “misguided and unnecessarily punitive.”

Is this the final nail in Huawei’s ambitions for North America?

[Image – Photo by Dmitry Rodionov on Unsplash]