US will deal with Huawei waiver applications within weeks, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross says
- About 50 submissions received from 35 tech companies seeking to sell products to blacklisted Chinese telecoms giant
- Trump said last month that sales could resume as he sought to restart trade talks with Beijing
The Trump administration plans to handle applications from tech companies seeking waivers over Huawei Technologies blacklisting within the next few weeks, US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told Bloomberg Television on Tuesday.
“We will deal with them very promptly,” Ross said. “There are 50-some-odd applications from 35 companies that have been received, and within the next couple of weeks we expect to have verdicts.”
Pressed on whether they would be completed in two weeks, Ross said: “I said within the next few weeks, few.”
Ross’s comments came a day after US President Donald Trump told the heads of top technology companies at the White House that the administration would make “timely” decisions on requests by US companies to sell products to Huawei.
American companies were banned from selling most US parts and components to Huawei without special licences because of national security concerns. But Trump said last month that sales could resume as he sought to restart trade talks with Beijing.
