WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Chinese telecoms giant Huawei and China’s top chipmaker SMIC received billions of dollars worth of licenses for U.S. technology from November through April despite being placed on a U.S. trade blacklist, documents released by Congress showed on Thursday.
According to the documents, 113 export licenses worth $61 billion were approved for suppliers to sell goods to Huawei while another 188 licenses valued at nearly $42 billion were greenlighted for Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC).
The U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs committee on Thursday voted to grant a request by its top Republican member Michael McCaul to release the licensing data, which it received from the Commerce Department in May.
The documents were obtained from House Republicans on the foreign affairs committee following the authorization at Thursday’s committee hearing and after a request from Reuters.
The numbers could anger some China hawks in Washington who have made a concerted effort to deprive Chinese companies of access to advanced U.S. technology.
(Reporting by Karen Freifeld and Alexandra Alper, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)
