US won't cave in to Huawei, Wilbur Ross says

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said the United States will not cave in to Chinese telecom giant Huawei.

“U.S. technology will not be used in a way that’s adverse,” he told FOX Business’ Maria Bartiromo on Thursday.

President Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday that allows the Commerce Department to ban foreign telecom gear that poses a national security risk to the technology infrastructure of the U.S. The move would have a direct impact on Huawei. Following the action, the Commerce Department specifically named Huawei as a company that potentially undermines U.S. national security.  Ross said its technology poses a risk to the development of 5G.

“We're moving into a 5G environment which will connect everything to everything, the so-called Internet of Things,” he said. “So as everything becomes interconnected it creates more risk because if someone does something untoward to those systems it could disrupt everything.”

Many lawmakers have been sounding the alarm over the threat of Huawei for years and Ross said that they have already begun to permeate within the U.S.

“Many of the rural telecom carriers are already using Huawei in the 4G environment and in order not to have them have to rip everything out, we'll be dealing with that separately,” he said.

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Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned several European countries in February against using Huawei's technology. He told FOX Business that it threatens the ability for Europe to work alongside the U.S.

But when Bartiromo asked what the administration’s plan is for dealing with allies “knowing that they have Huawei telecom and probably will be spied on or espionage,” Ross replied: “We can't force countries to remove things from their system. We can only advise them what we think are the dangers.”