Schumer Criticizes White House's Attempt to Postpone Restrictions on Huawei

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said it is “deeply concerning” that the White House is seeking a two-year delay on implementing government contracting and procurement-related restrictions on Huawei Technologies, saying the delay would “extend a window of opportunity for what is already a dire threat to our national security.” Speaking on the Senate floor on June 11, Schumer criticized what he said is the Trump administration's contradictory approach to China.

“It sometimes feels as though the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing,” Schumer said. The administration and Commerce Department is less than a month removed from its decision to place additional restrictions on Huawei, adding the company and its 68 non-U.S. affiliates to the Entity List (see 1905160072).

Schumer said the U.S. needs a more “consistent policy” toward China and that “China needs to understand that the U.S. is serious when it comes” to trade negotiations. “This idea of reciprocity — barring China’s companies from doing business here until they let our biggest companies do business there — is an important part of our overall effort to increase pressure on China to agree to meaningful economic reforms,” Schumer said.

The White House’s acting budget chief, Russel Vought, sent the delay request in a June 4 letter to Vice President Mike Pence and members of congress, according to a June 10 report from The Wall Street Journal. Vought is seeking to postpone restrictions on Huawei that would have been implemented by the National Defense Authorization Act that President Donald Trump signed in 2018, which bars U.S. agencies from procurement of Huawei telecommunications equipment, as well as entering into contracts with companies that use Huawei equipment.

The letter asks for the restrictions to take effect four years after the law was passed instead of two, the report said. “While the Administration recognizes the importance of these prohibitions to national security, a number of agencies have heard significant concerns from a wide range of potentially impacted stakeholders who would be affected,” the letter states, according to the report.

Schumer said “there is simply no reason in my mind for such a lengthy delay." U.S. agencies and contractors “have had time to make sure their technology doesn’t come from Huawei," he said.