The administration of US President Joe Biden revoked eight export licenses in early 2024 that previously enabled some companies to sell their goods to Huawei despite trade restrictions implemented in 2019.

While Reuters previously reported in May export licences were pulled from Intel and Qualcomm, it did not disclose how many vendors were impacted by the US Department of Commerce (DoC) mandate.

The administration of former US President Donald Trump added Huawei to a trade entity list of businesses barred from buying components from domestic companies due to concern the telecommunications giant could pose a security risk to US entities.

The news site reported Huawei’s US suppliers were able to skirt some of the restrictions due to a policy by the Trump administration that allowed the export of some items despite being placed on the entity list.

According to a document by the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security, licence approvals for Huawei included “exercise equipment and office furniture and low-technology components for consumer mass-market items, such as touchpad and touchscreen sensors for tablets”.

The document stated the DoC approved $335 billion worth of licences applications seeking permission to sell to Chinese parties on the entity list from 2018 to 2023, while licenses valued at $545 billion were denied, revoked or returned without action.

The approvals included $222 billion in 2021 out of $560 billion in applications received during the first year of the Biden administration.

Ever since the launch of Huawei’s Mate 60 Pro in August 2023, which uses a China-made processor, the US government has looked into taking measures against chipmakers believed to be supporting the vendor.