• Germany has been urged to bar equipment provided by Huawei and other Chinese manufacturers
• This would be the first time U.S. is threatening a country against consequences for using Huawei equipment

Reportedly, a letter from U.S. Ambassador Richard Grenell to the economics minister of Germany has stated that Berlin should bar Huawei and other Chinese vendors from constructing the 5G network of the nation, or they would have to risk losing access to U.S. intelligence.

Further from the reports, both the nations have been carefully rebuilding their intelligence sharing relationship since 2013 and 2014, when Germany and the U.S. were at odds over two spying scandals originating from the revelations by Edward Snowden regarding NSA snooping. According to a statement from the German Interior Ministry, the German officials said last month that they were not ready to ban Huawei equipment and were unsure of the legality of such a request.

A ministry spokesman said that a direct exclusion of any particular 5G manufacturer is currently not planned and not legally possible. The focus is on adapting the necessary security requirements in such a way that the security of these networks would be guaranteed even if there are potentially untrustworthy manufacturers in the market.

Apparently, this letter was sent on March 8, 2019, and would be the first time that U.S. has explicitly threatened consequences against a nation for using the equipment of Huawei. Huawei has been the subject of heavy scrutiny from U.S. intelligence agencies who said that the company is intimately connected to Chinese intelligence agencies and its government. Huawei has continuously denied these claims and has launched legal and marketing campaigns for defending itself.

For the record, Washington has urged its allies to ban Huawei and other Chinese firms from crucial communication-infrastructure work due to the suspicion that these firms might share data with the Chinese government.

However, Berlin says it has not seen anything to indicate that Huawei would utilize its equipment to spy on its users and therefore it should be allowed to bid on 5G contracts if it satisfies basic security criteria.