US President Joe Biden on Thursday signed into law bipartisan legislation that will ban companies like Huawei and ZTE from getting approval for network equipment licences in the US.
The legislation, Secure Equipment Act of 2021, will require the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to adopt new rules that clarify it will no longer review or approve any authorisation applications for networking equipment that pose national security threats.
Last year, the FCC formally designated Huawei and ZTE as national security threats, with that decision being made as the agency found that both companies had close ties to the Chinese Communist Party and China’s military apparatus.
Since March, FCC commissioner Brendan Carr has made repeated calls for the legislation to be passed, saying at the time that the FCC has authorised 3,000 applications for Huawei networking equipment to be used.