FedEx misses delivery of another Huawei package to US, blaming an ‘operational error’

FedEx Corp said on Sunday an operational error prevented a Huawei Technologies package from being delivered to the United States, just weeks after the US delivery company said an error led to the Chinese firm’s packages being misdirected.

“The package in question was mistakenly returned to the shipper, and we apologise for this operational error,” FedEx told Reuters in an emailed statement. A company spokeswoman confirmed that the package was US bound but declined to say what it contained.

China’s Global Times newspaper said in a tweet later that FedEx is likely to be added to China’s ‘unreliable entities list’ due to the incident.

Amid a bruising trade dispute between Washington and Beijing, China threatened late in May to unveil an unprecedented hit list of “unreliable” foreign firms, groups and individuals that harm the interests of Chinese companies.

Huawei, the world’s biggest telecoms gear maker, is at the center of the US-China trade dispute.

China’s commerce ministry and FedEx did not respond immediately to a request for comment on the likelihood of the company being added to the ‘unreliable’ list. Global Times is published by the ruling Communist Party’s People’s Daily.

China launched an investigation into FedEx earlier this month over Huawei parcels delivered to the wrong address, without giving details about the deliveries in question.