BEIJING \u2014 The Trump administration has filed criminal charges against Huawei for stealing technology. It has all but snuffed out the Chinese tech giant\u2019s sales in the United States, calling the firm an espionage threat. And it has tried to persuade other governments to do similarly.<\/p>\n
But Washington had not taken a straight shot at Huawei\u2019s ability to do business anywhere in the world until late Wednesday, when the Commerce Department\u00a0announced restrictions<\/a>\u00a0on the company\u2019s access to American technology.<\/p>\n American companies including Qualcomm, Intel and Broadcom sell Huawei microchips and other specialized parts that go into its smartphones and telecom equipment. Google\u2019s Android software powers its phones. Of the $70 billion that Huawei spent on components and other supplies last year, $11 billion went to American companies, a Huawei spokesman, Joe Kelly, said.<\/p>\n If Huawei is cut off from these suppliers, the effect could be catastrophic for the millions of people who use Huawei smartphones \u2014 and for the mobile networks, across a wide swath of the planet, that run on Huawei gear.<\/p>\n It would be \u201cthe trade equivalent of a nuclear bomb,\u201d said Kevin J. Wolf, a partner at the law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld and an assistant secretary of commerce under President Barack Obama.<\/p>\n Much remains unclear, however, about the scope and potential impact of the Commerce Department\u2019s move. The department says it is putting Huawei on its \u201centity list\u201d of firms that need special permission to buy American components and technology. How it decides to grant such permissions, and how broad a range of products the policy covers, will determine how badly Huawei\u2019s business is disrupted.<\/p>\n According to a\u00a0notice posted to the Federal Register<\/a>\u00a0on Thursday, licenses for selling to Huawei and 68 affiliated companies around the world will be reviewed with a \u201cpresumption of denial,\u201d indicating they will likely be hard to obtain. The notice is scheduled to be officially published in the Federal Register on Tuesday.<\/p>\n Given the spiraling tensions between China and the United States on tariffs, the move against Huawei may also be short-lived.\u00a0Talks to resolve the trade fight<\/a>\u00a0have stalled, and both sides are digging in their heels. The pressure is on to find common ground ahead of a potential meeting next month between President Trump and China\u2019s top leader, Xi Jinping, in Japan. Washington\u2019s campaign against Huawei could become a bargaining chip.<\/p>\n \u201cIn every other administration, the entity listing was purely a tool of law enforcement and national security,\u201d Mr. Wolf said. \u201cThe thing to watch is whether this will become a tool of trade policy and used as leverage in the negotiations.\u201d<\/p>\n In a statement on Thursday, Huawei said the Commerce Department\u2019s move was \u201cin no one\u2019s interest.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt will do significant economic harm to the American companies with which Huawei does business,\u201d the company said, and \u201caffect tens of thousands of American jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n China\u2019s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Commerce condemned Washington\u2019s decision in regularly scheduled news briefings on Thursday.<\/p>\n \u201cWe urge the United States to stop these wrongful practices and to create favorable conditions for normal cooperation between the two nations\u2019 companies,\u201d said Gao Feng, a spokesman for China\u2019s Commerce Ministry.<\/p>\n [Read more about the\u00a0<\/em>executive order<\/em><\/a>\u00a0on foreign-made equipment.]<\/em><\/p>\n Tensions between the Trump administration and Huawei escalated after American officials arranged the arrest of Meng Wanzhou, the company\u2019s chief financial officer and a daughter of its founder, in Canada late last year. The company and Ms. Meng face criminal charges in the United States in connection with alleged theft of industrial secrets and violations of sanctions against Iran. Ms. Meng remains in Canada while officials there decide whether she will be extradited.<\/p>\n Washington\u2019s action this week against Huawei puts the company in the same position that ZTE, a much smaller Chinese rival in telecom equipment, found itself in a few years ago.<\/p>\n The Commerce Department\u00a0added ZTE to the entity list in 2016<\/a>\u00a0after determining that it had violated United States sanctions by selling American-made goods to Iran. Eventually, the department relented, and ZTE\u00a0agreed to a hefty fine<\/a>. But a year later, the Commerce Department said ZTE had failed to comply with the terms of the agreement, and American technology companies were\u00a0barred outright<\/a>from selling to the company.<\/p>\n Cut off from American microchips and other parts, ZTE halted production and\u00a0was near collapse<\/a>\u00a0until President Trump intervened and softened the punishment to appease the Chinese leadership.<\/p>\n