Huawei ends US lobbying operations after years of fighting ban
- The departures follow an exodus of staff from Huawei’s US operations, after a years-long effort to maintain a presence in North America
- At its height, Huawei had nine lobbying firms on its payroll and a small army of public relations representatives
Huawei Technologies, the Chinese wireless equipment maker that spent tens of millions of dollars trying to win over US policymakers only to eventually be blacklisted, has shuttered its in-house lobbying operations in Washington.
Huawei’s last two registered lobbyists there – Jeff Hogg and Donald Morrissey – left in recent months, Bloomberg News found. The Shenzhen, China-based firm did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
The lobbyists’ recent departures follow an exodus of staff from Huawei’s US operations, and marks a quiet end to the company’s costly, years-long effort to maintain presence in the North American market. The firm reached its peak by supplying small mobile firms across the US even as major carriers shunned it. Rising tensions with Beijing eventually all but banned it.
More than a decade ago, Washington officials began warning of Huawei’s ability to embed spying capabilities in its gear, which was present in thousands of cell towers and other network equipment in the US. The company pushed back on those claims, saying its products posed no threat, but American regulators by 2022 had barred the company from selling products in the US and moved to starve it of access to cutting-edge technology.
At its height, Huawei had nine lobbying firms on its payroll and a small army of public relations representatives. Executives were known to regularly arrange briefings with congressional offices and major newsrooms. The company spent more than US$13 million lobbying in the past 10 years, according to federal filings.
In a single quarter of 2019, Huawei’s federal lobbying spending totaled US$1.8 million, a six-fold increase from the previous year. It spent US$3.6 million on lobbying in the US in 2021, according to the filings. Some of that went to glitzy parties populated by high-profile hired guns including veteran Democratic lobbyist Tony Podesta, who made US$1 million from Huawei that year, according to disclosures with the US Senate. Podesta said in a filing that his work for Huawei ended on December 30, 2022.
With a ban firmly in place and its US business scant, Huawei has little reason to keep burning through lobbying cash in Washington. “The US market isn’t a likely place for a breakthrough for Huawei in the near future,” said Chris Pereira, a former Huawei public relations executive and founder of the consultancy iMpact.