Gina Raimondo, President Biden‘s nominee for Commerce Secretary, has made it clear that she favors placing huawei and ZTE on the list of restricted companies. Raimondo said she does not see any reason why Huawei, ZTE and other Chinese companies should not remain on the restricted transaction list. Asked about the issue during a Senate nomination confirmation hearing on Jan. 26, Raimondo did not make a specific commitment to keep Huawei on the list, prompting several House Republicans to ask their Senate colleagues to hold off on confirming the nomination.
The U.S. Commerce Secretary’s pick said there was no reason to pull Huawei off the blacklist, the Union-Tribune reported, citing sources. Raimondo, nominated by President Joe Biden for commerce secretary, said she knows of no reason not to continue to keep Huawei and other Chinese companies on the list of companies with restricted transactions.
The newspaper reported in Bloomberg that U.S. Senate Republicans asked Raimondo about the two companies, as well as other Chinese companies such as SMIC and Hikvision, in a written question. These companies are on the U.S. Restricted Business List, which requires any U.S. company that wants to sell U.S. technology and intellectual property to these Chinese companies to get prior permission from the U.S. government. According to Raimondo, who is governor of Rhode Island, “I understand that entities on the Entity List and the End Military Users List are usually included because they pose a threat to U.S. national security or foreign policy interests, and I have no current reason to believe that entities on the list should not remain on the list. If (the nomination) is confirmed, I look forward to briefings on these and other entities of concern.”
According to the report, Raimondo did not make a specific commitment to keep Huawei on the list when asked about the issue previously during his Senate nomination confirmation hearing on Jan. 26, prompting several House Republicans to ask their Senate colleagues to hold off on confirming the nomination. The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee voted 21-3 on Wednesday to confirm Raimondo’s nomination.
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