As President Trump met with leading tech executives today to discuss the ongoing situation with Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., Congress doubled down on efforts to ban the company following reports that it did business with North Korea.

The meeting, first reported to involve only White House officials and tech company representatives, turned out to be a top-tier meeting between the president and leading tech company chief executive officers. CEOs in attendance at the meeting to discuss Huawei and other matters included Sundar Pichai of Google LLC, Chuck Robbins of Cisco Systems Inc., Robert Swan of Intel Corp., Steven Mollenkopf of Qualcomm Inc., Hock Tan of Broadcom Inc. and Stephen Milligan of Western Digital Corp.

The CEOs were said by The White House are said to have expressed “strong support” for policies restricting the use of products from Huawei but likewise “requested timely licensing decisions from the Department of Commerce, and the President agreed,” a White House spokesperson said in a statement.

Those licensing decisions, part of a partial reprieve given to Huawei by Trump during trade negotiations with China in late June, may end up being impossible as Congress once again moves against the company. This time that was sparked by a report that it provided technology to North Korea.

The Washington Post, referencing leaked documents, said Huawei partnered with Chinese state-owned firm Panda Information Technology Co. Ltd. on a variety of projects spanning eight years, including the construction of the Koryolink 3G mobile network in North Korea in 2008.

North Korea was and still remains subject to U.S. trade sanctions that prohibit the export of U.S. technology to the country. Huawei uses U.S. technology in its products, hence the company may have been complicit in breaching U.S. trade sanctions even if it did not do so directly.

Huawei’s exact role in the North Korea network remains somewhat unclear. The Post noted that the Commerce Department opened a probe into Huawei’s North Korean dealings in 2016 but has never publicly concluded that there is a direct link. Officially, Huawei has denied that it currently does business with North Korea but did not specify whether it had or had not in the past.

Regardless of the link, two bills before Congress are attempting to introduce new sanctions against Huawei, including removing the president’s ability to lift or even partially lift trade restrictions.

The Defending America’s 5G Future Act, sponsored by Senators Chris Van Hollen and Tom Cotten, would prohibit the removal of Huawei from the Commerce Department Entity List without an act of Congress. The act would also allow Congress to disallow waivers that any administration might grant U.S. companies engaged in commerce with Huawei. The same bill was also introduced to the House of Representatives with support from both parties.

A second bill, the Telecommunications Denial Order Enforcement Act, directs the president to impose denial orders banning the export of U.S. parts and components to Chinese telecommunications companies that are in violation of U.S. export control or sanctions laws.

“At every turn, we learn more and more about what a malign actor Huawei is,”  Van Hollen and Cotten said in a statement. “This new revelation underscores its ties to North Korea and its serial violations of U.S. law. That’s why we must pass our legislation to tackle the growing national security threat posed by Huawei’s efforts to dominate the 5G market. We must also move forward with the National Defense Authorization Act, which contains provisions to better enforce sanctions on Pyongyang by making it clear that any company that does business with North Korea – like Huawei reportedly did – will face American sanctions.”

Photo: Pxhere