On the eve of the U.S. Senate’s upcoming vote on whether to confirm President Biden‘s nominee for commerce secretary, Gina Raimondo, more than 20 Republican House members have asked to suspend confirmation of her nomination until she clarifies her position on huawei.
The U.S. Senate Commerce Committee is expected to vote on Raimondo’s appointment on Wednesday (Feb. 3). House Foreign Affairs Committee Republican leader Michael McCaul (R-Texas) joined 20 House members in asking the Senate to suspend confirmation of Raimondo’s appointment until the Biden Administration clarifies its export control policies.
Rhode Island Gov. Raimondo said last week during her nomination confirmation hearing that she will take a firm stand against China. She said the U.S. will take a “whole-of-government” approach and push back hard against Beijing‘s unfair trade practices. But she declined to elaborate on whether she would keep Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei on the Commerce Department’s list of entities.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki also declined to commit when asked about the issue during two press briefings last week, saying instead that the Biden administration was conducting an interagency review of issues involving regulatory action and issues related to Chinese investment.
Psaki did not answer directly when asked if the new Biden administration would continue the Trump administration’s restrictive policies on Huawei.
She said, “We have to play better defense, and that has to include holding China accountable for its unfair and illegal actions and making sure that U.S. technology does not facilitate China’s military buildup.”
Sharkey also said she would exclude untrustworthy providers from the U.S. telecommunications network.
These statements apparently did not satisfy Republicans on Capitol Hill. McCaul, the ranking Republican member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, described the Biden administration’s continued refusal to commit to including Huawei on the U.S. Commerce Department’s list of entities as “alarming and dangerous.
The Republican members of the House mentioned that members of both the Democratic and Republican parties view Huawei as a national security threat to the United States. They urged those senators who had asked Huawei to remain on the list of entities to stick to their principles and suspend the confirmation of Raimondo’s nomination until the Biden administration clarifies their intentions regarding Huawei and their export control policies toward China.
Last Friday (Jan. 29), three Republican senators, Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Ben Sasse (R-N.Y.) and Tom Cotton (R-Texas), sent a letter to Raimondo asking her to clarify whether she would remove Huawei from the Commerce Department’s list of entities. They warned that “the company has not changed with the president of the United States.”
The Trump Administration had announced a series of restrictions on Huawei for national security reasons, including placing it on the Commerce Department’s list of entities in 2019 to limit the Chinese telecommunications giant’s access to key technologies and products from the United States. The Trump administration has also launched a global campaign to seek to exclude Huawei from 5G networks.
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