Trump Says He’ll Allow China’s Huawei to Buy From U.S. Suppliers

(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump said he’ll allow Huawei Technologies Co. to buy products from U.S. suppliers, in a concession to China after talks with the country’s President Xi Jinping on Saturday.

“U.S. companies can sell their equipment to Huawei,” Trump said at a news conference following the Group of 20 summit in Osaka, Japan. “We’re talking about equipment where there’s no great national security problem with it.”

The Commerce Department last month moved to blacklist Huawei, cutting it off from U.S. suppliers, though many companies have managed to skirt the restrictions. Trump met with Xi on Saturday on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Osaka, Japan, and agreed to pause the trade war between their countries.

Trump said the two leaders discussed Huawei as part of their talks.

“I said that’s O.K., that we will keep selling that product, these are American companies that make these products. That’s very complex, by the way,” Trump said. “I’ve agreed to allow them to continue to sell that product so that American companies will continue.”

The U.S. has been engaged in a global campaign to block Huawei from so-called 5G communications networks, calling the company a security threat. The Trump administration has alleged the Chinese government could use Huawei’s products to spy on countries that use them in their networks.

The company has denied that it conducts espionage for Beijing.

Trump didn’t suggest he was relenting on plans to ban imports of Huawei equipment for new 5G telecommunications networks.

To contact the reporters on this story: Margaret Talev in Washington at mtalev@bloomberg.net;Nick Wadhams in Washington at nwadhams@bloomberg.net;Jennifer Jacobs in Washington at jjacobs68@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alex Wayne at awayne3@bloomberg.net, Daniel Ten Kate

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