The future looks a little brighter for Huawei after President Donald Trump made an apparent U-turn and said that U.S. companies could continue to sell products to the China-based vendor. The move effectively reverses a ban imposed by the U.S. government on sales by U.S. companies to Huawei, although it seems that much still remains unclear.

The president’s reasoning was that the ban was unfair to U.S. suppliers that wanted to sell products for use in Huawei smartphones, but he seemed to apply this only to equipment “where there’s no great national security problem with it.” That would seem to indicate there will be continuing opposition by the U.S. government to the use of Huawei equipment in future 5G networks.

Despite this opposition, Huawei still seems to be picking up 5G contracts, and recently flagged its 50th contract win. European countries have not necessarily been bowing to U.S. calls to exclude Huawei from 5G networks. Following the example of Germany and the United Kingdom, the Netherlands appears to be the latest to avoid expressly banning Huawei or any other supplier from its 5G infrastructure over espionage fears.

It has been surmised that Huawei’s rivals are set to benefit from the China-based vendor’s 5G network woes. As things stand, vendors such as Ericsson and Nokia have been content to trumpet their own 5G successes and growing number of network wins, and have generally refrained from commenting directly on the security implications of using rivals’ equipment or otherwise.

Until, that is, Nokia CTO Marcus Weldon reportedly broke ranks and told BBC News in an interview that the United Kingdom should be wary of using Huawei kit because it had vulnerabilities that meant it posed a risk to 5G networks.

According to a later report by the BBC, Weldon made reference to a new report from U.S. security firm Finite State, which was fairly scathing about the security of Huawei products.

“In virtually all categories we examined, Huawei devices were found to be less secure than those from other vendors making similar devices,” the report said.

With regard to the security issues, Weldon was also reported to have said “that some of it seems to be just sloppiness, honestly, that they haven't patched things, they haven't upgraded. But some of it is real obfuscation, where they make it look like they have the secure version when they don't."

Nokia was quick to distance itself from Weldon’s comments, saying they did not reflect the official position of the company. “Nokia is focused on the integrity of its own products and services and does not have its own assessment of any potential vulnerabilities associated with its competitors,” the vendor said in a statement.