Huawei Watches Tariffs from the Sideline

­If you’ve been paying any attention to Wallstreet, you know the market has taken a nosedive lately – largely owing to the multitude of tariffs and the ensuing uncertainty. Tech stocks have felt the crunch especially hard, given how intertwined they are with global markets.

And while the market has slowly ticked upwards, at least as of this writing, all of this chaos has wreaked havoc on the industry – with a few notable exceptions. In one particular case, a company that’s previously faced the full (economic) wrath of the U.S. government is largely sitting out this round.  

Back in 2019, Huawei – which maintains close ties with the People’s Republic of China – was placed on America’s economic and trade blacklist, and in 2022, the FCC completely banned sales or import of equipment made by Huawei, effectively shutting it out of the U.S. market.

So with the latest round of tariffs (and retaliatory tariffs), Huawei mostly finds itself on the outside looking in.

As pointed out by TechRadar, “One $100 billion technology company is probably looking at the current chaos…with a serene, detached view.”

Part of that, of course, is Huawei’s near-complete and forceful detachment from the U.S. market, but they’ve also done a lot to grow their business organically and without relying on anyone or anything outside of China.

For one, they sold their smartphone unit, Honor, to a Chinese consortium, while also throwing a ton of cash at R&D. As a result, its net profit temporarily fell by 28%, but it also unwittingly positioned itself strongly for the recent trade war.

Their Ascend compute platform and HarmonyOS operating systems are dominating the Chinese market and around the world (without feeling the pain of the U.S. tariffs).

So by enacting these tariffs, with a particular emphasis on China, the U.S. may have unwittingly empowered one of the biggest multinational technology conglomerates on the globe.