US Tech Companies Sidestep a Trump Ban, To Keep Selling To Huawei (france24.com) 136
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: A number of the United States' biggest chip makers have sold millions of dollars of products to Huawei despite a Trump administration ban (alternative source) on the sale of American technology to the Chinese telecommunications giant, according to four people with knowledge of the sales. Since the Commerce Department enacted the ban in May, American companies including Intel and Micron have found ways to sell technology to Huawei, said the people, who spoke on the condition they not be named because they were not authorized to disclose the sales. The components began to flow to Huawei about three weeks ago, the people said. Goods produced by American companies overseas are not always considered American-made, and the suppliers are taking advantage of this. The sales will help Huawei continue to sell products such as smartphones and servers.
It always amazed me that I could get a whole PCB.. (Score:4, Interesting)
From China, fully populated, for less than the parts cost here in America.
All the parts are made in the far east, if they sell there, they sell for pennies on the dollar compared to here.
And that doesn't even take into account the counterfit "Made to spec" parts that "Accidently Creep in" to the supply chain.
Someone in China can hire people to test rectifier diodes for a 200V breakdown voltage, grind the tops off and remark them as 200V zener diodes, and make money at it for a $0.003 part.
It boggles the mind.
For those interested, Rectifier diodes and Zener diodes have opposite temperature curves, lol.
And rectifier diodes fail fast, reverse biased to their breakdown voltage...
That cost a few million dollars to find, and was in medical equipment. :)
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Not just PCBs. You can buy whole airliners made in the same fashion [nbcbayarea.com].
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Well, if you buy medical equipment from people that do not make sure their supply-chain is clean and rather save $0.005 or so per part, you probably are getting what you deserve. At the very least these parts should have been tested. Greed and stupidity, not only on the part of the counterfeiters.
Re:It always amazed me that I could get a whole PC (Score:5, Interesting)
It's no better in the west. Manufacturers will substitute parts if they think they can, even when you specify specific ones. A few years back I had a few thousand boards fail because a British manufacturer named after a mythical bird decided that they could save a few quid on a particularly expensive Panasonic capacitor by using fakes. They admitted what they did too, because they were hoping we could come up with a solution that didn't involve re-working thousands of sensitive PCBs.
The best way to deal with this issue is to buy genuine components yourself and them ship them to the manufacturer. Or find a manufacturer you trust - I've got a good relationship with Seeed Studio in China.
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Welcome to economies of scale. It provides a wide range of benefits:
Lower costs.
Better logistics.
And expanded market.
One of the reasons for the lack of US based options is that the quality isn't there. Low quality that is. It's hard to find low volume orders in the USA that would provide what the Chinese provide on restrictions for parts, board manufacturing options, slow deliver, etc.
You ultimately get what you pay for. /Disclosure: This poster has been burned by buying a PCB from China completely without
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Not really different from the behavior of European migrants who got us involved into 2 world wars which had nothing to do with the US.
Takes a few generations for ties to the mother country to break. The English migrants still havnt got their full loyalty to the US what with the special relationship and what not
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Indians won ww2 for you
That's a new one.
Hmm, export trade compliance training anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
I distinctly remember taking the export trade compliance training when I worked at Intel, and then when I went back to Intel a second time (and then left again). There was a very large section on complying with export restrictions to countries or companies based on export laws. They used specific use cases where people would try to skirt the laws by proxying, or going through another subsidiary. And this was deemed a HUGE no-no. They made it very clear that this was something that would get you fired. They made that point multiple times.
My current employer (also in tech) has the same type of training. And they use very similar use cases, and have the same harsh stance on violation of these rules.
Iâ(TM)m actually a bit surprised that both Intel and Micron, in this case, would take a risk trying to loophole their way through. Iâ(TM)m curious if this eventually will end up as another use case in that training...
Re:Hmm, export trade compliance training anyone? (Score:4, Funny)
Maybe you should call Intel HR and report them? Tell them someone's violating the terms of the Employee Handbook, and that they should print it out and throw it at them.
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I wonder if you can get mineral-loaded filament for 3-d printers so that you cn print out the handbook carved into tablets of stone, then throw it at the miscreants.
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I'll bet their legal departments looked at this very closely and the result was "These regulation are idiotic and won't survive this administration, so it's only for another year or so."
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I think you misspelled "six years or so".
Because the DNC seems hell-bent on sticking their collective dick in a wood chipper.
Re: Hmm, export trade compliance training anyone? (Score:2)
Sounds like it's time for Uncle Sam to get out the iron boot.
The bigtech companies have been leading advocates for and collaborators with the Soviet American police state. Look what happened to everybody's favorite secret police boss, Lavrentiy Beria, back in the old USSR. Live by the police state, get stomped by the police state.
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I think that's China's actual plan at the moment. Why give concessions now when they can wait 18 months and probably be dealing with someone else?
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I hope it's not Biden, but even if it is, he is leading Trump by 9 points at the moment: https://www.realclearpolitics.... [realclearpolitics.com]
Then again we should probably just as Putin who is going win, right?
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fool, Doj does it, not WH
stupid kids.
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Could be that they're banking on 45 being out of office before any real repercussions can happen. This ban, after all, did not come into being from a bill legitimately passed by congress and signed by the executive. Rather, it is merely one of many unilateral temper tantrums on the part of the current petty and petulant occupant of the oval office. It will instantly go away when he does.
And remember the example of IBM. When Big Blue found itself on Nixon's enemies list, did they capitulate? No. They l
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Sad. Try that and you'll be in prison or dead. The police and army have more guns. And no, the police and army siding with you to do a coup against the next president would be ... bad.
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And Trumpers aren't the ones with the brains.
Re:Hmm, export trade compliance training anyone? (Score:5, Informative)
The article is sensationalist BS. Huawei still has the 90 day waiver. These companies aren't dodging anything, they are licensed by US to sell things to Huawei at the moment.
https://www.federalregister.go... [federalregister.gov]
>This final rule creates a 90-day temporary general license that partially restores the licensing requirements and policies under the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) for exports, reexports, and transfers (in-country) to sixty-nine entities added to the Entity List on May 16, 2019.
Re:Hmm, export trade compliance training anyone? (Score:4, Informative)
Copy pasta failed to grab the last line which was the most relevant one:
>This rule is effective May 20, 2019, through August 19, 2019.
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Unless another extension is granted. That's why Trump has made noises about letting Huawei off the hook if trade negotiations advance in the way he wants.
These are not idle threats. All his administration needs to do is to simply not extend this waiver and Huawei is fucked.
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Have you missed the part where opposition to China's mercantilist rise is one of the handful of issues on which both of the political majors in US agree on?
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Both. Globalist left wants to dominate the global world. China is their primary opponent. Outsourcing right requires rule of law and market access for outsourcing, something China signed up to do as requirements to join WTO. It reneged on every single one of these obligations.
So yes, both of them want China torn down.
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The CEO of SoftBank, which owns ARM, said that they intended to keep dealing with Huawei. There was just a temporary pause while they checked which products originated from the US and were thus banned. He seemed to think it was a small proportion (Softbank is Japanese, ARM is British).
In the longer term this could discourage companies from making/designing stuff in the US, because it would become subject to the ban.
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Just out of intrest: what's your employers stance on your bonus if you can't close the deal?
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We should not be dealing with hardline capitalist countries that were once COMMUNIST ... period!
Karma in the future (Score:3)
Under the current nationalistic populistic US public sentiment, American companies wouldn't speak up or else they will be attacked by the US legal system which has been hijacked by the headline-grabbing politicians in the name of national security as their election tool. But you can be sure they will quietly move their R&D away from the US especially now that the rest of the world can see the true face of the US and will no longer believe American political marketing tricks (a.k.a. American values.) At the same time, the US government helps remove American hi-tech industry's first mover advantage / monopoly by clearing out high-end technology products from the Chinese market and substantially lower the barriers for Chinese tech companies.
In the not so distance future, not only Americans won't get back blue-collar manufacturing jobs as those may be migrated to Vietnam or other lower cost countries (not sure why Americans like such low class jobs anyway,) we will all lose hi-tech engineering jobs to China and elsewhere faster than ever.
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Under the current nationalistic populistic US public sentiment, American companies wouldn't speak up or else they will be attacked by the US legal system which has been hijacked by the headline-grabbing politicians in the name of national security as their election tool. But you can be sure they will quietly move their R&D away from the US especially now that the rest of the world can see the true face of the US and will no longer believe American political marketing tricks (a.k.a. American values.) At the same time, the US government helps remove American hi-tech industry's first mover advantage / monopoly by clearing out high-end technology products from the Chinese market and substantially lower the barriers for Chinese tech companies.
In the not so distance future, not only Americans won't get back blue-collar manufacturing jobs as those may be migrated to Vietnam or other lower cost countries (not sure why Americans like such low class jobs anyway,) we will all lose hi-tech engineering jobs to China and elsewhere faster than ever.
This, the jobs are gone because western economies have outgrown them, we cannot bring them back without creating the economic conditions of China where workers can be forced to work 12 hour days for less than US$300 per month AND afford to live off that.
Work on keeping the industries we have, things China can't simply clone with unskilled labour... These are typically high tech or service oriented industries that require the least educated worker to have at least achieved a secondary school education.
Companies exist to do business? (Score:4, Interesting)
It does not speak very well of the "master of the deal" that he apparently does not know this...
Re:Companies exist to do business? (Score:4, Funny)
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I find this whole thing somewhat lacking in entertainment value. Probably just me...
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I do. And since this is the same guy that apparently cannot really read...
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I do. And since this is the same guy that apparently cannot really read...
He can read just fine. He's 73 years old. He's presbyopic but he absolutely refuses to wear reading glasses. Every time he does something stupid with a piece of paper it's because it's a blur to him and since he didn't read it at all until that moment, he's taking wild-ass guesses what it says based on the blur and what people are saying around him. He's from the era and social group that spent so much effort vilifying nerds that he is willing to make a total ass of himself on public television, repeate
Commnists! (Score:2)
And the million dollar question is... (Score:2, Insightful)
Are all those companies, which are considered American, actually American?
If an "American" company heavily outsources the development, manufacturing and support of its products, and uses complex schemes to minimize the amount of taxes paid using loopholes in tax heavens, at which point stops being "American"`?
Or are they actually stateless entities operating beyond the control and supervision of any state, calling themselves "American" just because they can use that to increase their profits and influence t
IP theft (Score:2)
Funny thing is they will be the first in line to be compensated in the US for IP theft by the PRC