Huawei Founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei said he doesn’t expect China to retaliate against Apple, despite the Chinese telecom company being blacklisted by the White House.
Reuters noted that the CEO would “protest” any moves by the Chinese government for retaliation against Apple because of the White House stepping up the trade war. Earlier in May, the U.S. slapped $200 billion of tariffs on goods coming into the U.S.
“That [Chinese retaliation against Apple] will not happen first of all, and second of all, if that happens, I’ll be the first to protest,” Ren said, reported Reuters.
As for the White House’s move to blacklist the Chinese telecom player, Ren said the move will hurt the lead Huawei built over the past two years. He added that the company will ramp up its chip supply, or find other options to remain ahead in the smartphone and 5G markets. The blacklist makes it difficult for Huawei to do business with companies in the U.S. Following that, the U.S. Department of Commerce said it was looking to scale back some of the restrictions on the company to prevent any interruptions to existing network operations and equipment.
Last week, Reuters reported that Google is halting its business relationship with Huawei. According to that report, Google is suspending all business with Huawei that requires it to transfer hardware, software and technical services. The only exception, noted the report, is when it’s publicly available via open-source licensing. Reuters noted that the move on the part of Google could hurt Huawei’s smartphone business because it won’t be able to access updates to the Android operating system.
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