Cutting Off Huawei Hurts U.S. Suppliers, Says ITIF
WASHINGTON—Following reports that the Biden administration has stopped approving licenses for U.S. companies to export to the Chinese telecommunications firm Huawei, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), the leading think tank for science and technology policy, released the following statement from Stephen Ezell, ITIF’s vice president for global innovation policy:
The administration’s ongoing efforts to bolster U.S. technology competitiveness have been commendable, but fully cutting off Huawei from U.S. suppliers would likely have the opposite effect.
On one hand, Huawei technologies are already banned from U.S. telecommunications networks, which undercuts the national security rationale for cutting it off—and on the other hand, there is a strong economic rationale not to cut off Huawei.
China remains a critical market for U.S. technology vendors, accounting for 36 percent of U.S. semiconductor sales as recently as 2019. Every dollar a U.S. technology company earns in the Chinese market is one that Chinese competitors don’t earn, so banning exports to Huawei helps Chinese technology suppliers and hurts their U.S. counterparts. It further reduces earnings U.S. firms need to invest in future cycles of innovation, and it exacerbates America’s trade deficit.
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The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) is an independent, nonprofit, nonpartisan research and educational institute focusing on the intersection of technological innovation and public policy. Recognized by its peers in the think tank community as the global center of excellence for science and technology policy, ITIF’s mission is to formulate and promote policy solutions that accelerate innovation and boost productivity to spur growth, opportunity, and progress.
