According to reports, the US has reduced its tune in the weeks since it made threats to limit intelligence sharing with Germany if the country failed to drop Huawei from its 5G rollout.
Senior US officials are “highly satisfied” with the new regulations Germany has made setting strict 5G security standards, regardless of the provider. The news was reported on Sunday by newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, and it cited anonymous German government sources.
Germany set standards for 5G security which are apparently so high that unreliable companies have no hope of meeting them. The US says this is the “perfect” approach and as a result, it no longer demands that Germany explicitly ban Huawei.
An emailed statement made by a US State Department spokesperson reads, “What the United States is urging allies to do is institute security processes that include, among other factors, looking at whether any particular vendor is subject to unchecked or extrajudicial control by a foreign power that could direct that vendor to break host country laws or undermine its security.”
There were reports back in March stating that US Ambassador to Germany Richard A. Grenell reportedly wrote to the country’s economics minister, saying the US wouldn’t be able to share intelligence with the same transparency for fear of the information reaching China.
After that, several indirect warnings about Huawei equipment by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo which according to Washington is used to spy for the Chinese government. The allegations have been denied by the company, however.
