HUAWEI’S TELECOMS gear is popular around the world thanks to its high quality and low prices. Not in America, where the Chinese giant is banished over (unproven) fears that it could be used by spies in Beijing to eavesdrop on Americans. But expelling Huawei from the United States—and pressing allies to do the same—was not enough for the Trump administration. It seems to want Huawei dead. Full stop. Last year the Department of Commerce (DoC) barred American firms from selling Huawei chips made in America, which oxygenate swathes of the global semiconductor industry. In May the DoC added a rule banning domestic and foreign firms from using American-built chipmaking equipment to create custom-made processors for Huawei.

On August 17th the DoC tightened the noose once again—this time, many experts think, for good. Its new rule prohibits anyone from selling any chips to Huawei, custom or not, if these were produced with American technology. This covers practically every chipmaker in the world, including those in China, thus closing loopholes that the global chip industry’s high-powered lawyers have found in the earlier edicts.

Opportunity?  tpower