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According to a new report by the South China Morning Post (SCMP), HONOR could be banned by the US after all, despite splitting from Huawei. As most of you know by now, HONOR is no longer owned by Huawei. The company was sold a while back, presumably as a way for Huawei to gather funds.
HONOR is in danger of being banned by the US, despite cutting ties with Huawei
Having said that, HONOR is now allowed to use Google services, and can continue doing business as usual. Well, for the time being. If this report is accurate, HONOR could be banned moving forward.
The report states that a group of 14 Republican politicians, in the US House of Representatives, asked the US Commerce Department to add HONOR to the government’s economic blacklist.
As a reminder, Huawei was added to the US Entity List back in May 2019. From that point on Huawei was banned from buying parts and components from US companies or using American technology without the US government’s explicit approval.
The Republican politicians claim that HONOR was spun off to avoid the US ban
Now, the aforementioned politicians, led by Michael McCaul, claim that HONOR was split from Huawei “in an effort to evade US export control policies meant to keep US technology and software out of the hands of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)”.
A US Commerce Department spokesman did reply to Republican politicians. He said that the agency does appreciate that perspective. He also added that the department “is continually reviewing available information to identify potential additions to the Entity List”.
As of now, we don’t have any information from either Huawei or HONOR. The two companies did not respond to any of this, as they probably don’t feel the need to at this point in time.
It seems like HONOR is not in any immediate danger of being added to the US Entity List. Still, the US Commerce Department is constantly on the lookout for any threats. HONOR is surely in their focus, as a precaution, simply because it spun off from Huawei.