Japanese Carrier Starts Selling Huawei Products After Trump’s Change of Heart

Japanese network carrier Internet Initiative Japan (IIJ) announced on July 2 that it will sell new Huawei smartphones. The news was announced days after U.S. President Trump signaled that he would relax restrictions on exports to the Chinese company.

On Jun. 29, Trump tweeted that at the request of American tech companies and the Chinese government, “I agreed to allow Chinese company Huawei to buy products from them which will not impact our National Security.“

IIJ was originally scheduled to release Huawei’s new products on May 24, but with the US government ban on exporting US products to Huawei, the company would lose access to vital software, including the Android mobile OS. Due to the uncertainty, the release was delayed.

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Huawei also ensured IIJ that “software and security updates would remain usable as they have been until now.” Furthermore, Huawei has also updated its website with a reassurance to users that the clash with the Trump administration would not affect its products.

Other major Japanese cellular carriers including NTT Docomo, KDDI and SoftBank Corp. currently do not have any plans on selling the new Huawei devices. KDDI said it is working to evaluate the effects of the U.S. export restrictions and Trump’s new position on the matter.