U.S.-China Trade War and Its Impact on Huawei

Abstract

The trade war that began between the U.S and China in 2018, turned out to be one ofthe most intense economic confrontations in the recent history. Rather than using weapons, it was fought using tariffs, sanctions, and technology restrictions. This thesis focuses on the impact of trade war on international business by using Huawei Technologies as the case study company. The paper examines the way Huawei operations were broken, the response of the company, and the lessons that can be learnt in the future in running a business unit. The study has been done as a qualitative case study based on secondary data of scholarly sources, reports, and media. The information was analyzed and compared to the history of trade war. The findings indicate that the U.S. restrictions denied Huawei access to major technologies, which diminished its competitiveness at the international level. Nevertheless, Huawei made changes by putting money into research and development, developing its own HarmonyOS, and turning to domestic and Global South markets.