Huawei will ‘exit’ US market

The CEO of Huawei, a Chinese telecommunications company accused of spying, said he’s giving up on the U.S. market.

In a Nov. 25 interview with French journalists,  Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei said “it’s not worth it” if the company gets in the middle of U.S.-China relations.

“Therefore, we have decided to exit the U.S. market, and not stay in the middle,” he said, according to Foreign Policy, citing a Chinese transcript of the interview.

{mosads}But Huawei spokesman William Plummer clarified that the company isn’t planning to shutdown its entire U.S. business. 

“We remain committed to our customers, employees, investments and operations and more than $1 billion in sales in the U.S., and we stand ready to deliver additional competition and innovative solutions as desired by customers and allowed by authorities,” Plummer told The Hill. 

In the interview last month, Ren mentioned that the company’s handsets are “still selling well” in the United States.

The House Intelligence Committee issued a report last year warning that Huawei poses a threat to U.S. national security and should be barred from doing business in the country.  

The panel concluded that the Chinese government could use the telecom giant to spy on the U.S. or sabotage critical communications networks.

U.S. regulators pressured Japanese company SoftBank to promise not to use Huawei equipment in order to get permission to buy Sprint earlier this year. 

Huawei has denied that it would help the Chinese government spy on the U.S.