The Pentagon has managed to receive a brief waiver from the Trump administration regarding a government wide ban on contractors that use Huawei, or other Chinese made telecommunications equipment.
According to a Defense News report, an obtained internal memo has revealed that the Pentagon has received a weeks long reprieve, until 30th September 2020, for doing business with the Department of Defense. The request for the waiver arrives after the firms were still reeling from the economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic. The original provision was to take effect on 14th August 2020.
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At the moment, the administration is finalizing regulations that would prohibit government contracting with companies that have their supply chains contain products from certain high risk Chinese vendors. These include Huawei as mandated under of Section 889 of the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act. The government has considered the Chinese tech giant as an espionage threat.
John Ratcliffe, Director of National Intelligence, granted he Pentagon a temporary waiver, citing US national security interests. This brief reprieve will also offer time to further assess a broader waiver request from the Department of Defense. The move arrives as a temporary win for firms and trade associations representing them, who lobbied against the ban.
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