US President Joe Biden on Thursday signed a law that bars companies such as Huawei or ZTE from obtaining licenses from US regulators for new equipment that is seen as a security risk. The Senate previously passed the bill for the so-called “Secure Equipment Act” unanimously and the US House of Representatives by a 420:4 vote.
The new law stipulates that the telecommunications authority can no longer review or approve FCC license applications for equipment that the manufacturer has classified as a risk to national security. The main objective is to keep hardware from Huawei and ZTE as well as some smaller Chinese providers out of the United States’ telecommunications infrastructure.
clear regulation
In theory, it has been for years – however, there was no final statutory regulation, only presidential orders and ordinances of officers. And the practice also turned out to be an ambiguous affair. For example, since 2018, the FCC has approved about 3,000 applications from Huawei for the delivery of telecommunications products to US network operators.
In the end, it was no joy, tangible evidence of risk was needed to prevent imports. Otherwise, as per the previous legal position, it would have been only an arbitrary authority to reject the applications. The new law now creates more clarity on the matter – even if it hardly pleases Chinese providers. Ultimately, however, the legislation does not have the potential to mitigate climate change in negotiations with the Chinese government, as the original assessment of the situation was already in place.
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