Biden Extends ICT Emergency; Wicker Presses Companies on Huawei

President Joe Biden extended an emergency Tuesday, letting the Commerce Department bar transactions in the information and communications tech sector that are an unacceptable risk to national security. Former President Donald Trump implemented this in 2019 (see 1905150066). That executive order paved the way for recent FCC and Commerce actions to limit the U.S. presence of equipment from Huawei and other Chinese manufacturers. Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Roger Wicker, R-Miss., meanwhile, pressed a trio of U.S. tech companies for information on their compliance with Commerce Department Bureau of Industry and Security’s August revisions to its restrictions on Huawei’s use of U.S. technology (see 2008170043). “The unrestricted acquisition or use in the United States of information and communications technology or services designed, developed, manufactured, or supplied by persons owned by, controlled by, or subject to the jurisdiction or direction of foreign adversaries augments the ability of these foreign adversaries to create and exploit vulnerabilities in information and communications technology or services,” Biden wrote Congress. “This threat continues to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat." Wicker asked Seagate, Toshiba and Western Digital whether they consider the August BIS restrictions to bar “shipment of hard disk drives to Huawei or any affiliate without a license” and if the companies “continued shipping” gear to Huawei. He wants to know if the companies incorporate “semiconductor products” into their hard-disk drives “that the supplier knows or should know would then be incorporated into hard disk drives for subsequent shipment to Huawei.” The Semiconductors in America Coalition formed Tuesday in a bid to get Congress to fund implementation of the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors for America Act, which was included in the FY 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (see 2105110065).