Google reportedly severed significant business ties with Huawei after President Donald Trump blacklisted the Chinese tech giant.
As Reuters reported on Sunday, Alphabet Inc.s Google suspended all business that requires the transfer of hardware and software products, except those covered by open source licenses. The move was seen as a major blow to Huawei, which Trump’s administration has tried to blacklist around the globe.
The move means that Huawei will lose access to all updates for the Android operating system and the company’s smartphones outside of China will no longer have access to Google apps and services, including Gmail and Google Play. Google will also cease providing technical support and collaboration for its services to Huawei going forward.
Not all details of the move were available, and Reuters reported that the specific services being cut were still a matter of internal discussion at Google.
The move comes just days after the Trump administration added Huawei to a trade blacklist, making it more difficult for the Chinese tech giant to do business with American companies and likely leading to side effects that will harm Americans in more rural areas.
The actions against Huawei are part of Donald Trump’s increasingly strict approach toward trade with China, including a series of harsh tariffs on Chinese goods. As CNN reported, the economic effects of these tariffs have not yet reached most Americans, but economic experts believe it will soon start to affect rural residents the hardest.
This comes as Trump’s other tariffs have had an adverse effect on the same group, the report claimed.
“Farmers in the heartland, many of whom backed Trump because of his promise to rein in the top US economic competitor, are anxious about the threat of renewed retaliatory tariffs after China canceled purchases of US soybeans last year,” the report noted.
“Both Walmart and Macy’s say they might need to raise prices if Trump goes ahead with expanding tariffs to cover almost everything China exports to the US, from toys to clothes and hardware.”
Hussein will immediately lose access to updates to Google’s Android operating system | Google suspends some business with Huawei after Trump blacklist https://t.co/tCA0OceVuC
— Hany Anber (@HanyAnber) May 19, 2019
Huawei sells its equipment to mostly smaller, rural phone and internet service providers in the United States, which could lead to even greater economic effects for those in rural states, the report added. Wilbur Ross, Trump’s secretary of commerce, said this week that the administration would be willing to work with smaller and rural providers to ensure a smooth transition away from Huawei equipment, but experts say the move will leave these providers with older infrastructure that is more difficult to replace when it degrades.