
TAIPEI/PALO ALTO, U.S. -- The latest Washington crackdown on Huawei Technologies reveals how a handful of U.S. companies, dominating a few key areas of the global chipmaking industry, hold the key to choking off supplies to the Chinese tech titan.
The U.S. Commerce Department on Monday banned Huawei from obtaining foreign-made chips and other electronic components developed or produced using American software or technology, effective immediately. The new ban is seen as an extension to the rule announced in May and closed the loophole whereby U.S. companies could sell to third parties and those third parties could in turn provide to Huawei, according to legal experts.