The U.S. government seems to be leaving no stone unturned when it comes to cutting China’s Huawei and ZTE out of the U.S. market. Reuters reported that President Donald Trump may issue an executive order to declare a national emergency that would ban U.S. companies from buying telecom gear from Huawei and ZTE.

The United States government claims that the two companies pose a security risk. It alleges that if their telecommunications equipment is embedded within U.S. networks it can be used for spying on behalf of the Chinese government.

According to Reuters, Trump could issue the executive order as early as January. The order would direct the Commerce Department to block U.S. companies from buying equipment from foreign telecommunications makers that pose significant national security risks.

Creatively, the executive order would invoke an obscure law, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which gives Trump the authority to regulate commerce in response to a national emergency that threatens the United States. The purported national emergency would be the imminent buildout of 5G networks.

Meanwhile, in a New Year's message, Huawei’s rotating Chairman Guo Ping acknowledged that 2018 had “been an eventful year, to say the least.” But Ping’s message took the high road rather than snarky defiance. He stated that Huawei’s 2018 sales revenue is expected to reach $108.5 billion, up 21 percent year-on-year.

Ping said the company has signed 26 commercial contracts for 5G with global carriers and it has shipped more than 10,000 5G base stations to markets around the world. In addition, Huawei Cloud has launched more than 140 cloud services and is working with its partners to serve global customers with 37 availability zones across 22 regions.

It should be noted that Huawei is privately owned so it doesn’t have to adhere to accounting practices governed by any independent commission. But it says its annual reports are verified by the accounting firm KPMG.