U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina M. Raimondo said on Sunday that the chips powering Huawei’s Mate 60 Pro phone, from the sanctioned Chinese company, are not as advanced as American chips. This indicates that the U.S. policy of export restrictions on telecom equipment giants is effective.
Huawei has been on a trade restrictions list since 2019, and last August released a new phone powered by sophisticated chips, surprising both the industry and the U.S. government. The Huawei Mate 60 Pro is seen as a symbol of China’s technological resurgence, despite Washington’s efforts to weaken its ability to produce advanced semiconductors.
Many saw this as a slight to Raimondo during her visit to China. But in an interview with CBS News’ “60 Minutes,” Raimondo pushed back on this notion.
“It tells me that export controls are working because that chip is nowhere near what we have in the United States,… It’s years behind the advanced chips we have in the United States,” she said. “We have the most sophisticated semiconductors in the world. China does not.”
For years, Washington has been trying to deprive Beijing of advanced semiconductor chips and the tools needed to manufacture them, fearing they would be used to bolster China’s military capabilities.
Huawei, symbolizing this tech war, was added to the so-called Entity List in 2019, triggering concerns among U.S. suppliers seeking difficult licenses to export to it.
But its suppliers, including Intel, have been granted licenses worth billions of dollars to continue selling to the company. Huawei announced this month its first AI-powered laptop driven by Intel chips, sparking anger from hardliners in the Republican party.
When asked if she’s being tough enough on big corporations, Raimondo is resolute.
“I will hold companies accountable just the same,” she told Leslie Stahl in the “60 Minutes” interview. “They don’t like it when I tell them they can’t sell their semiconductor to China, but I will,” she added.
looking for hard to find electronic components, Marscomponents independent distributor have more than 650,000 parts you can choose.
