SAN FRANCISCO — Huawei’s relations with the U.S. government have worsened during the last year, and American jobs and the nation’s military industrial complex are suffering as a result, according to Huawei USA CSO Andy Purdy.

Political strife amid an ongoing trade war with China has effectively prevented any breakthroughs in this increasingly bitter battle, and even if political power changes hands later this year the situation is unlikely to change significantly, he told SDxCentral during an interview at the RSA Conference.

“The U.S. government bipartisanly is really pissed off at China. They are sincerely mad at China and they’re sincerely concerned about the rise of China economically and militarily… They’re frankly afraid that China wants to take over the world. So it’s that context that is shading this thinking,” he said.

“They’re trying to hurt Huawei to hurt China, and they’re going so far that they're willing to risk hurting America more than they hurt Huawei.”

The U.S. government and some of its allies efforts to cripple Huawei are myriad and have been met with mixed results. Earlier this month, federal prosecutors filed new charges against the company, accusing it of espionage and conspiring to steal trade secrets. Less than a week later, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by Huawei that challenged the constitutionality of a law that bans the U.S. government it’s contractors, and suppliers from purchasing the Chinese vendor’s equipment and services.

Huawei has also been hit with a trade ban that prohibits it from selling to or buying components from American companies, following a presidential executive order. An oversight board in the United Kingdom discovered significant security vulnerabilities in its software, and Huawei CFO Wanzhou Meng remains under house arrest in Canada after the Justice Department accused her of violating sanctions on Iran.

Many of these issues spilled over into a heated debate earlier this week during a panel with representatives from the Department of Defense, a conservative think, a security researcher, and Huawei’s Purdy at the RSA Conference.

“We’ve had some bumps in the road, but Huawei is going to be more successful in two or three years than we would have been if we hadn’t been forced to break from buying from American companies. The American companies are going to be hurt as a result,” Purdy told SDxCentral.

The company is continuing to pursue and consider its legal options, but Purdy said he’s also particularly encouraged by efforts underway in Europe to create “transparent mechanisms to evaluate the risk in all equipment suppliers.”

He implored the U.S. government and its allies to devise risk mitigation measures and request greater transparency from Huawei and its competitors. “We’re happy to meet those requirements. We think our competitors should too,” he said.

Purdy argued that it’s important for mobile operators and governments to ask more of the telecom equipment suppliers, including Huawei, Ericsson, Nokia, and Samsung. “Why don’t they ask us for more information about what we do?” he said.

“Why don’t they ask us more of what we do and what we’re planning to address supply chain risk?” he added. “They should ask those questions of Huawei and they should ask those questions of our competitors.”

Fostering competition among radio access network (RAN) equipment suppliers is “absolutely critical,” especially if they are forced to compete on price, function, and transparency, Purdy said. “I don’t get it — this whole idea that we’re not going to talk to people because they think we’re the enemy or what have you.”

He also addressed developments underway at the Federal Communications Commission to require carriers that receive Universal Service Funds to remove and replace Huawei’s equipment from their networks. “Huawei doesn’t do measurable business in the United States anyway,” he said, describing Huawei’s U.S. customers as Tier 3 operators that primarily provide service in rural areas.

“We’re loyal to those customers. Our product and our service really helps them stay in business,” Purdy said. “We’ve heard of cases where some of our customers cannot get Nokia and Ericsson to return their phone calls… Why would think that somebody’s going to represent their interest” when Huawei’s equipment is ripped out and replaced, per the FCC order.