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Huawei chair urges U.S. to reconsider 'attack'

'Our supply chain is under attack by the United States'.

That was the dramatic message from Huawei Wednesday (September 23), as it called on Washington to reconsider trade restrictions which it said were hurting global suppliers.

The Chinese telecom firm is the world's biggest maker of mobile equipment and smartphones, but U.S. trade curbs have hit its access to commercially available chips.

Huawei chairman Guo Ping:

"We hope the U.S. government can reconsider its policy and if the U.S. government allows it we are still willing to buy products from U.S. companies. We will continue our global and diversified purchase strategy."

The Trump administration says Huawei is a vehicle for Chinese state espionage, which the company denies.

On September 15, new trade restrictions were introduced which banned U.S. companies from supplying or servicing Huawei.

Guo said the firm had enough chips for operations to continue, but it was feeling the effects of U.S. restrictions.

"The U.S. has modified their sanctions for the third time and that has indeed brought great challenges to our production and operation. In terms of the chips, in the middle of September, we just rushed to stockpile some chips."

Guo said he understood that suppliers like Qualcomm had applied for U.S. licenses which would allow them to keep serving Huawei.

Intel has already received licenses to supply certain products to Huawei.