Ross, Commerce Mum on Huawei License Extension

Days before the Commerce Department's temporary general license for Huawei is set to expire, the agency and Secretary Wilbur Ross declined to say whether they will extend the license, but said it has been beneficial for U.S. rural communities. Ross suggested that Commerce would like to keep it going.

“There are enough problems with telephone service in the rural communities, and we don’t want to knock them out,” Ross told Fox Business on Nov. 15. “So one of the main purposes of the temporary general license is to let those rural guys continue to operate.” The license, which was already extended once in August (see 1908190039), is scheduled to expire Nov. 18. Some economists predict Commerce will again renew the license (see 1909300061).

Commerce is expected to grant a six-month extension, according to a Nov. 14 Politico report, which would be significantly longer than Commerce’ previous 90-day renewal. Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security has still not issued decisions for Huawei export license applications, the report said. Commerce declined to comment.

Ross said rural telecommunications companies are “unfortunately very dependent” on Huawei, stressing that Huawei still presents a national security risk to the U.S. The tech company was added to Commerce’s Entity List in May (see 1905160072). “Can you trust Huawei to be the 5G supplier for your country?” Ross said. “Our conclusion thus far is no.”

Ross also touched on U.S.-China trade negotiations, saying the two sides are “much farther along” than last week and are discussing final details on phase one of the deal. “The devil is always in the details,” Ross said, “and we’re down to the last details now.”

One roadblock is China’s commitment to purchases of U.S. agricultural goods, Ross said. He said U.S. negotiators are assessing the validity of China’s commitment to buy $40 billion to $50 billion worth of U.S. agriculture products (see 1910110038) and working on an enforcement mechanism to ensure they don’t back out. “They can certainly afford to buy $40 to $50 billion,” Ross said. “The question is, are they willing to commit to it, and if they are willing to commit, are there any escape hatches to the commitment?”

Another snag in negotiations was Chile’s cancelation of the APEC summit, Ross said, which was expected to feature a meeting and a potential signing ceremony between President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping (see 1910300037). “It eliminated a very important deadline,” Ross said. “It’s great to have a deadline when you’re having negotiations. Now that that deadline got removed, through no fault of the Chinese and through no fault of ours, it takes off a little bit of the time pressure. And I think that's what we're dealing with.” Even so, Ross said he thinks the phase one deal will get done. “I think there's a very high probability of it,” he said.