The White House is reportedly planning a 5G summit to combat Huawei
The Trump administration will continue warning nations against using Huawei for 5G, a report says.
- I've been covering technology and mobile for 12 years, first as a telecommunications reporter and assistant editor at ZDNet in Australia, then as CNET's West Coast head of breaking news, and now in the Thought Leadership team.
The Trump administration is reportedly planning a 5G summit.
US President Donald Trump is planning a global 5G summit for early April, CNBC reported Friday. The White House summit will invite companies like Nokia , Ericsson and Samsung , which all provide the networking equipment behind mobile networks, according to the report. It's aimed at preventing Chinese giant Huawei from gaining a 5G foothold in other nations, CNBC said citing unnamed Trump administration officials.
"We're going to have a lot of them in the White House to have a discussion. I'm sure the president will join us in part," CNBC said Larry Kudlow, director of the United States National Economic Council, told reporters Friday. "That would include Samsung, that would include all of our guys."
Tech CEOs have been meeting with the president to discuss the issue, the report said, including Microsoft president Brad Smith.
The White House didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Huawei couldn't immediately provide comment.
The news follows reported accusations by the US government last week that Huawei can access global mobile networks by using backdoors intended for law enforcement. Huawei denied the report.
Huawei was blacklisted by the US in May when it was added to the United States' "entity list" (PDF). In addition, US President Donald Trump at the same time signed an executive order essentially banning the company in light of national security concerns that Huawei had close ties with the Chinese government. Huawei has repeatedly denied that charge.
The Justice Department last week revealed it's also charging Huawei and two of its US subsidiaries with racketeering and conspiracy to steal trade secrets. The federal indictment alleged Huawei used "fraud and deception" to steal technology from American companies.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson approved Huawei for 5G last month with some conditions: The British restrictions are to exclude Huawei from building core parts of the UK's 5G networks, have Huawei's market share capped at 35% and exclude Huawei from sensitive geographic locations. The European Union allowed higher-risk vendors for 5G with similar restrictions at the end of January.
Huawei's 5G approval there came despite the US urging the UK to ban the Chinese telecommunications giant.
