Report: T-Mobile and Sprint parent companies may drop Huawei to get merger approval
- Dan Primack, author of Axios Pro Rata
Illustration: Lazaro Gamio/Axios
The parent companies of T-Mobile U.S. and Sprint, Deutsche Telekom and SoftBank respectively, have agreed to "consider curbing" their use of equipment from China's Huawei Technologies in order to receive national security clearance for their planned merger, Reuters reports.
Why it matters: U.S. officials believe Huawei is tied too closely to the Chinese government, and that incorporating its technology into U.S. networks could enable cyber espionage. The company also became a flashpoint in U.S.-China trade tensions following the recent arrest and requested extradition of Huawei's CFO Meng Wanzhou.
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Editor's note: This story has been corrected to reflect that parent companies Deutsche Telekom and SoftBank are considering dropping Huawei, not T-Mobile and Sprint.