Honor, which was a Huawei brand since 2013, managed to dodge the veto of the United States by becoming an independent company. The Chinese firm was acquired by a consortium of more than thirty companies. Since then, it has been able to launch smartphones with 5G chips and Google services, although this could be short-lived. According The Washington Post, United States security agencies they are considering including Honor in the blacklist.
The aforementioned media assures that four of the security agencies in charge of making these types of decisions they do not agree. On the one hand, members of the Pentagon and Energy Department are in favor of applying a veto to the Chinese company, while the Commerce Department and the State Department do not believe that Honor poses a threat to the national security of the United States.
The division of opinions among the delegations has caused a delay in the decision. They will have to agree to assess whether Honor finally becomes part of the black list, but in the event that they continue with indifference, it will be the United States Cabinet who will have the last word. In this case, the decision will be made by President Joe Biden.
How might the US veto affect Honor?
Honor, for the moment, has not commented on the matter, but what would happen if the brand becomes part of the list of entities of the Department of Commerce? While the restrictions are different for each firm, it is likely that Honor, like Huawei, also cannot use services and technologies of US companies without a license. The one that was Honor’s parent company from 2013 to 2020 can hardly do business like Microsoft or Qualcomm, where 5G technologies are not present.
Huawei, remember, began to be part of the US blacklist in 2019, when the Donald Trump administration classified it as a company of “threat to national security”. From that moment, the Shenzhen firm was forced to launch smartphones without Google services and months later it began to encounter significant limitations when it came to acquiring components to manufacture its smartphones.
Xiaomi also became part of the blacklist. The company, however, managed to reach an agreement with the current Biden administration after filing a lawsuit.