Google is siding with Huawei

After all the bans imposed last year by the U.S. government, Huawei somehow is still standing, but it's luck might run out soon. The U.S. is back at it trying to force TSMC to cut supplies for Huawei, while most U.S.-based companies are still prohibited to deal with Huawei without a license. For this reason, Huawei is now unable to include Google’s Mobile Services (GMS) that include Play Store, Gmail, Maps and YouTube on its mobile devices, and Google itself is not content with the situation.

The Google license was indeed extended for a short while back in late 2019, but all Huawei 2020 smartphones like the Mate 30 and Mate Xs foldable (which are not available in the U.S. yet) already feature a croppled Android OS and an AppGallery store that does not offer support for popular apps like Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Instagram, Uber, Netflix, Amazon, Spotify etc.

It is true that Google earlier warned that sideloading Gmail and Youtube on the affected Huawei devices could lead to security risks, but Google also knows that Huawei can bring serious money from licensing Android on its mobile devices. Not wanting to further hurt business relations with Huawei, Google is now trying to obtain a license from the U.S government.

The chances might not be in Google’s favor, since the U.S. government is still accusing Huawei for conspiracy and trade secret stealing via tapped devices, trying its hardest to render the company powerless. However, Google is aware that Microsoft was able to obtain a similar license for Huawei’s MateBook 13 and MateBook X Pro laptop models in December 2019, so at least there is a precedent. Google's success would immediately allow Huawei to restore access to the GMS suite on all affected devices.