The letter said that "while the Administration recognizes the importance of these prohibitions to national security, a number of agencies have heard significant concerns from a wide range of potentially impacted stakeholders who would be affected." Given Huawei equipment is deployed in rural areas rather than with major carriers, the letter also pointed out that "rural Federal grants recipients may be disproportionately impacted by the prohibition." Mnuchin did seemingly backtrack later, telling CNBC that "as we've said all along, the Huawei discussions are really national security discussions, they're separate from trade," but the damage was seemingly done. The practicalities of the sanctions themselves, quite apart from 5G deployment costs and trade talks, have also hit home in recent days. Yes, this might have security implications, but it would also have serious commercial implications for the large U.S. technology companies that dominate the space.

Source: Forbes June 10, 2019 16:17 UTC