Aug 14, 2018 04:04 EDT
President Trump has signed a bill into law - as part of the broader
Defense Authorization Act - banning U.S. Government agencies from using tech designed or manufactured by a number of Chinese firms, including Huawei and ZTE.
For those following this particular string of
escalating sanctions from the U.S. Government
against these companies over the past couple months, you'd know this has been
a long time coming, despite these firms' efforts to
prevent the ban from happening. Democrats and Republicans alike viewed them as security threats and pushed forward with this bill despite the
latter's initial attempt to re-impose sanctions on them instead of an outright trade ban.
Moreover, the bill explicitly states that the ban would be on any "substantial or essential component of any system" along with any tech purposed to handle user data. This means that all Government agencies and any outside party that wish to do business with it or be associated with it in any form would have to have their equipment undergo extensive replacements. The bill does, however, make provisions to allocate funding to any party that needs to do so.