Huawei spin-off Honor should be blacklisted, says US Senator Marco Rubio in appeal to Biden administration
- Rubio’s call for Honor to be blacklisted comes nearly a year after Huawei sold the budget smartphone brand to help it avoid US sanctions
- Huawei faces restrictions on accessing certain critical technologies like advances semiconductor chips, which have not applied to Honor since the sale
In a letter dated Thursday October 14 seen by Reuters, Rubio described Honor as essentially an “arm” of the Chinese government with newly unfettered access the same prized US technology currently denied to Huawei. The letter adds their voices to a growing chorus of China hawks calling for the blacklisting.
By spinning off Honor, “Beijing has effectively dodged a critical American export control,” Rubio wrote, in the letter signed also by Senators John Cornyn and Rick Scott. In November 2020, Huawei sold off its lower-end smartphone brand Honor.
“By failing to act in response, the Department of Commerce risks setting a dangerous precedent and communicating to adversaries that we lack the capacity or willpower to punish blatant financial engineering by an authoritarian regime.”
Honor, Commerce and the Chinese Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Huawei declined to comment but pointed to a prior statement, which affirmed that Huawei would not hold any shares or be involved in managing Honor following the spin-off.