The move marks the latest effort by Washington to penalise Huawei, a major telecom infrastructure provider and smartphone maker which is already on a blacklist that prevents it from access to certain US technology products and services. "When it comes to 5G and America's security, we can't afford to take a risk and hope for the best," Pai said in a statement.
"We need to make sure our networks won't harm our national security, threaten our economic security, or undermine our values." Pai said that as the US upgrades to so-called 5G or fifth-generation wireless networks, "we cannot ignore the risk that the Chinese government will seek to exploit network vulnerabilities in order to engage in espionage, insert malware and viruses, and otherwise compromise our critical communications networks." Huawei says that Washington has provided no proof of any security risks posed by the company.