US Justice Department asks federal judge to throw out Huawei’s lawsuit against sales ban
- The US has been engaged in a global campaign to block Huawei from so-called 5G communications networks
A US law prohibiting federal agencies from buying Huawei Technologies’ equipment isn’t legislative punishment but serves to protect against China gaining a strategic foothold in those agencies’ networks, the US government said.
Justice Department lawyers on Wednesday asked a federal judge in Sherman, Texas, to throw out a lawsuit Huawei filed against the US government in March. The Chinese telecom giant sued to invalidate a law Congress passed last year barring government purchases of its products.
“Congress’s concern that Huawei could be used by the Chinese government to target US telecommunications networks did not develop overnight,” according to the government’s filing.
“Lawmakers and numerous executive branch officials have been raising concerns about Huawei’s potential to enable Chinese cyber-activity against US networks for over a decade and have been acting over that time to mitigate the threat.”
The litigation in Texas involves Huawei’s ability to sell equipment into the US market and is separate from the US government’s blacklisting of Huawei, which prohibits the company from buying components from American suppliers.