Did Donald Trump just give Huawei a pass?
- US President Donald Trump said he wants the US to ‘win through competition, not by blocking out currently more advanced technologies’
- Trump made the comment about 5G in a tweet on Thursday, without mentioning Huawei
Did Ren Zhengfei just get an olive branch from Donald Trump?
After the Huawei Technologies founder said in a BBC interview that there is no way the US can crush the Chinese telecommunications equipment supplier because it is “more advanced” in technology, US President Donald Trump said in a tweet that he wanted the US to “win through competition, not by blocking out currently more advanced technologies”. Ren also said in a CBS interview aired this week that “5G is not an atomic bomb” and that there will be “equipment that is suitable for the United States”.
Trump tweeted Thursday that the US “must always be the leader in everything that we do, especially when it comes to the very exciting world of technology!”, without mentioning Huawei by name. He also wanted “5G, and even 6G, technology in the United States as soon as possible” and “there is no reason that we should be lagging behind on something that is so obviously the future”.
Ken Hu Houkun, one of Huawei's three rotating chairmen, commented on Trump’s tweet: "Mr. President. I cannot agree with you more. Our company is always ready to help build the real 5G network in the US, through competition."
Trump’s tweets would appear to be at odds with the stance taken by some in his administration. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday said the US will not partner with countries that adopt Huawei’s technology.
“If a country adopts this and puts it in some of their critical information systems, we will not be able to share information with them,” Pompeo said during an interview with Fox Business. “In some cases there's risk – we will not even be able to co-locate American resources, an American embassy, an American military outpost.”
Ren, normally low profile, has been giving interviews to foreign and domestic media in recent weeks to defend Huawei, the company he founded in 1987. Starting out as a trader in telephone switches to rural areas in China, the company today has more than 170,000 employees and business in more than 170 markets, raking in annual revenues exceeding US$100 billion.
