Huawei ban

Within a few weeks, Trump has taken extreme and unprecedented steps with a national emergency to ban Huawei. Complicating all of this is the growing trade war between the US and China. The ban on Huawei is bases on the logic of pressure being placed on China’s economy to extract concessions down the road. But if that’s true, offering a national security justification would be both dishonest and diplomatically counterproductive.

A ban will not work for American networks to be more secure. Instead, it will hurt many American and businesses by denying them access to leading technologies, reducing competition and increasing prices. If Google is pulling back its Android licence then the new Huawei devices won’t be able to download apps, which is going to cost the tech giant hundreds of millions of dollars per year. The loss is estimated to be closer to $150 million to $200 million per year for Google. Huawei has currently 500 million users and 52 percent of them are from China where Google Play is already not available, so Google will feel the impact in markets in Europe and Asia. The ban on Huawei will affect thousands of users worldwide especially in Europe and in Asia.

Jahanzaib Mengal (Panjgur)