(Reuters) – The Biden administration has stopped providing U.S. companies with licences to export to Chinese telecom equipment firm Huawei, the Financial Times reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter.
The U.S. commerce department had notified some companies that it would no longer grant the licences, the report said.
This potentially implies a move towards total ban on the sale of American technology to Huawei.
The commerce department, Huawei and chip equipment maker Applied Materials did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.
The United States in October placed new restrictions on China, including controls on advanced computing integrated circuits and certain semiconductor manufacturing items, in a bid to thwart China’s military modernization.
In 2019, the Trump administration imposed a trade ban on Huawei, citing national security concerns, which barred the company from using Alphabet Inc’s Android for its new smartphones, among other critical U.S.-origin technologies.
“U.S. restrictions are now our new normal,” Huawei executive Eric Xu said in December.
(Reporting by Chavi Mehta in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)
