The G20 Summit wrapped up today in Japan, during which US President Donald Trump met with Chinese President Xi Jinping. President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping have reached a truce that will remove some restrictions on Huawei buying technology from the US. It’s not certain exactly what will change, but Trump suggested the US would allow hardware that didn’t have a “great national emergency problem.” That could help Huawei restore some of its partnerships for consumer tech.
According to The Washington Post, Trump told reporters that he will be meeting with US officials to ease the pressure on Huawei, but also that they haven’t made a formal decision to lift them yet, while The Wall Street Journal reports that he indicated that the two countries will leave what to do with the company until the end of the negotiations.
Huawei is caught in the midst of the larger US-China trade war. While both countries have levied tariffs against one another, US security officials have warned about the possibility that the telecommunications company maintains ties to the Chinese government, and could represents a security threat to the US.
The turnaround comes as part of a larger concession that could be good news for technology as a whole. The US is indefinitely postponing additional tariffs on Chinese goods in return for China buying large quantities of American farm products. This is far from a permanent solution, but it could reduce pressure on tech companies to move some production outside of China in their bid to avoid tariffs.
If Huawei does resume key US partnerships, it might come just in time to mitigate a crisis. Huawei has reportedly scaled back phone production knowing that its loss of official Android support and other partnerships would hurt its phone sales, and its PC business was in serious trouble without parts from American firms like Intel.
