By Tom Cheshire, Asia correspondent

Huawei has achieved quite the feat: in the space of a year, it's gone from a little known company in the US to a "national emergency".

US President Donald Trump didn't name the Chinese telecoms business in his executive order.

At this stage, he doesn't have to: Huawei's notoriety in the current administration means we all know who he's talking about.

The order effectively bans Huawei from the US market. That's less of a big deal than you might suppose.

First off, Huawei has already been banned from federal networks. And it doesn't have much of a presence stateside.

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Its huge revenues – $107bn (£83bn) in 2018 – overwhelmingly come from China and the rest of the world.

However, another statement is more worrying for the company.

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US has 'called it wrong' on ban says Huawei

The US Commerce Department added Huawei to its "entity" list. This means that American companies cannot sell technology to Huawei without a special licence.

For all its undoubted and home grown prowess in 5G networks, Huawei still relies on American technology, from chips to software.

The US applied a similar order to ZTE, another Chinese telecoms business and it was a hammer blow.

Chinese President Xi Jinping asked Mr Trump to remove the order as part of trade negotiations. Mr Trump said he did so as a favour to Mr Xi, keeping the company alive.

The electronic display on a Huawei mobile wifi device, in London. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Thursday April 25, 2019. Photo credit should read: Yui Mok/PA Wire
Huawei 'to go extra mile' to reassure world on 5G spying

Huawei is better placed than its compatriot company but will still be put under pressure.

That sort of favour is unlikely this time.Read More – Source

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