The US government targeted Huawei with additional trade restrictions. It has informed component suppliers it is revoking the licences required to export to the vendor and turning down requests for permits.

Suppliers holding special licences which were notified of the move include Intel, with the US Department of Commerce (DoC) stating in an email it intends to deny a significant number of licence requests for exports to Huawei and a revocation of at least one previously issued licence. Sources told Reuters eight licences were pulled from four companies, including Japanese flash memory chip maker Kioxia.

The companies notified have 20 days to respond to the DoC, which has 40 days to advise them of any change in a decision. The companies then have 45 days to appeal. In the final weeks of his administration, US President Donald Trump stepped up his aggressive campaign against China. Last week, Xiaomi was added to a list of companies deemed to have links with the Chinese military, while China found itself among several countries facing restrictions on network technology purchases due to supply chain security concerns. Transactions with a host of Chinese apps have also been banned, and the New York Stock Exchange delisted the nation’s big-three mobile operators.