US said to receive more than 130 licence requests from companies to sell to Huawei after trade blacklisting

The US Commerce Department has received more than 130 applications from companies for licences to sell US goods to China’s Huawei Technologies, three sources said, nearly two months after President Donald Trump said some sales would be allowed.

But the Trump administration has not yet granted any licenses for sales to the blacklisted company, said the people familiar with the process who spoke to Reuters on the condition of anonymity.

The standstill coincides with mixed messages from Trump in the US-China trade war, which have dimmed hopes for prompt decisions on license applications to sell to Huawei, the world’s top producer of telecoms equipment.

That has raised the spectre of billions of dollars of lost sales for chip makers, software companies and others in Huawei’s US supply chain.

“Nobody in the executive branch knows what (Trump) wants and they’re all afraid to make a decision without knowing that,” said William Reinsch, a former Commerce department official.

Last week, Trump vowed to raise tariffs on US$550 billion in Chinese imports, hours after China imposed new levies on US$75 billion in US goods. Then he softened his tone towards China at the G7 leaders’ meeting over the weekend, saying he thought the world’s two largest economies would reach a deal to end the tit-for-tat trade war that has roiled markets and hammered growth.