Huawei's Founder Says He Would 'Protest' if China Retaliates Against Apple Over U.S. Trade Ban - MacRumors
Skip to Content

Huawei's Founder Says He Would 'Protest' if China Retaliates Against Apple Over U.S. Trade Ban

Earlier this month, the Trump administration added Huawei to a trade blacklist over national security concerns, effectively forbidding U.S. companies from doing business with the Chinese smartphone and telecom giant.

huawei apple logos
As the U.S.-China trade war continues to escalate, it has been suggested that China could retaliate to the Huawei ban by enforcing a similar ban on a large American company like Apple. However, even Huawei's own founder Ren Zhengfei admitted that he would oppose such a move, offering praise for the iPhone maker.

Speaking through a translator, Ren told Bloomberg that Apple is both the "world's leading company" and his "teacher":

That will not happen, first of all. And second of all, if that happens, I'll be the first to protest. Apple is the world's leading company. If there was no Apple, there would be no mobile internet. If there was no Apple to help show us the world, we would not see the beauty of this world. Apple is my teacher — it's advancing in front of us. As a student, why should I oppose my teacher? I would never do that.

Last week, investment firm Goldman Sachs warned that Apple's per-share earnings could take a 29 percent hit if China stops importing its products.

Ren appeared confident that Huawei can prevail despite the U.S. trade ban, suggesting that the company will ramp up its in-house technologies if necessary. Huawei already designs its own Kirin processors for some smartphones, but that relies on ARM, which severed ties with Huawei after the U.S. trade ban.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Tag: Huawei

Popular Stories

huawei pura x max

New Huawei Foldable Looks a Lot Like Apple's Rumored iPhone Fold

Monday April 13, 2026 4:47 am PDT by
Apple's upcoming foldable iPhone is expected to feature a book-style form factor that's relatively uncommon in the foldables market, but Huawei's new Pura X Max appears to share a similar wide aspect ratio. Set to be released in China next week, Huawei's new device actually builds upon a design used by the original, smaller Pura X, which was marketed last year as an extra-wide flip phone....
app store monthly sub commitment

Apple Introduces App Store Monthly Subscriptions With 12-Month Commitment

Monday April 27, 2026 12:52 pm PDT by
Apple today announced the launch of a new subscription option for App Store developers: monthly subscriptions with a 12-month commitment. The new option allows developers to offer subscribers discounted pricing typically associated with an annual subscription but paid on a monthly basis to keep payments more affordable. This new payment option allows you to offer subscribers more affordable...
Dynamic Island iPhone 18 Pro Feature

This Is What the iPhone 18 Pro Looks Like

Saturday April 25, 2026 10:00 am PDT by
A recent leak provides our best look yet at the design of Apple's upcoming iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max models. Leaker Sonny Dickson recently shared images of the first iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 18 Pro Max, and foldable iPhone dummy models. The images largely conform with rumors about the designs of the three devices and provide the first real visual confirmation of how they will look. ...

Top Rated Comments

90 months ago
see samsung? no shame in admitting something like this
Score: 30 Votes (Like | Disagree)
90 months ago
If there was no Apple, how would we get the technology for our next phone release?
Score: 26 Votes (Like | Disagree)
realtuner Avatar
90 months ago
Uh, oh.

So much for all the people "hoping" China would retaliate. This guy is smart - he knows how much Apple means to the Chinese economy and how much revenue/employment they generate. Cutting off your nose to spite your face is never good business practice.

I also think that by praising Apple he's hinting that they don't want to see this trade war escalate and would like to come to a settlement. So he's avoiding being critical of Apple.
Score: 20 Votes (Like | Disagree)
90 months ago
Silly Americans

China has been banning American tech companies in the name of 'national security' for the past forever. US did not retaliate on the ban of Google or Facebook or Amazon. The US didn't retaliate because 2 reasons: 1. US - China import/export/manufacturing relations were too important to jeopardize. 2. The US government upholds the notion a country has the right to protect themselves in the name of national security (I'm not going to go over issues in the Middle East etc etc that's a very different animal compared to US-China relations).

US should have banned Huawei when China banned American tech companies but didn't due to above reasons. China has been taking advantage over different countries and companies for a very long time few examples are: the tech that companies bring into China to use for mass production tools (and other means to produce tech goods) turns into Chinese asset when they are done with it (its their law). You ever hear why Trump keep saying that China must stop stealing tech? This is one of MANY tactics they use to acquire other country's R&D for free. It goes beyond stealing trade secrets from within like Qualcomm, Microsoft, Dell, and other American tech companies and also not paying for royalties or going through proper licensing procedures to using other companies' tech among others. Not only this, the Chinese government provides rewards and even cash payouts for people/organizations to bring secrets or company plans/blueprints/R&D to the Chinese government. They are rewarded and therefore this type of practice is encouraged.

China has been and still riding on the fact that they mass produce for the world and using this not as negotiation piece but rather a weapon to coerce companies and countries to follow their way or else the supply line would be destroyed. What can companies do but to listen when their profits are going to be effected. Not to mention there are heavy sacrifices companies must make in order to have their goods produced in China and not only stealing assets but unfair trade agreement that favours China heavily. This is what initially got Trump to start the trade war due to the unfairness that China has been practicing for a very long time.

Samsung knew this would happen and moved most of their manufacturing to Vietnam where no such ridiculous laws exist and have been doing it for the last 5 years. It took them 10 years in total to set up in Vietnam so they have the production power as similar to China. Foxconn is also about to leave among many other companies because of this coercion and relentless stealing and unfair bargaining chips for China when international supply chains are concerned.

This goes deeper than just Huawei and America. The US has had enough and are now just pushing back when an alternative approach should have been a backup plan since the 70s but nothing happened as China was not seen as a threat like how they saw the Soviet Union way back in history. This pushback should have happened several decades ago and now it is happening and what the US is doing is they are slowly finding equilibrium in power balance between them and China. China wants to be the number 1 super power and that is their objective and will try as long as they have the coercion powers (manufacturing advantage) and will die trying. If this happens the US will no longer be the super power and the dollar will be deemed worthless and must bow to China's demands and coercion. Seeing this happening in the next 50 years if nothing is done about it is a high probability.

The hypocrisy is this, when China banned all the American tech companies it was because of their national security and was accepted by the US. But when US does it to 1 of their companies all hell breaks loose and suddenly America is a tyrant, a bully, an unfair trading partner and China is a victim. US is banning Huawei (for the most part) because of national security same reason as China when they banned Google. This is 1 to 1 fairness and SHOULD be this way. American is just looking after its security and China must accept and back away without taking a shot at Apple (???? how does this make sense).

Samsung has far superior 5G technology than Huawei and the reason Huawei is known for being the global distributor for 5G is because they are significantly cheaper (due to lower tech, government subsidies, and to be competitive) and they force other countries to use (in some cases) by threatening their import/export operations just like how Huawei "demanded" South Korea to use their 5G network and if they don't they will stop importing from them. Yes this actually happened please look it up. This type of thing is sadly extremely common in the Chinese government as a strategy. Irony is that South Korea is practically number 1 in terms of networking tech, internet speeds, and 5G in the world but the Chinese government is still trying to coerce them by threatening Korea's export business.

Samsung right now is in talks with American companies and the government to bring about them the 5G infrastructure. This is million miles better since Samsung is not owned and subsidized by the Korean government there is far lower risk of espionage. For those who don't know, Huawei is essentially owned and dictated by the Chinese government so all the data they obtain can and will be used by their government. Imagine that? All of US military security networking equipment can be spied on and remotely controlled by the Chinese at desperate times? America will not come out on top.

Want to be patriotic this is the right time to do so if you don't want America to become a foot stool for China starting early as 2050. The Chinese media and government can victimize themselves and try to draw sympathy all they want but their plans are incredibly transparent that in the long term they want to overthrow the US and become the sole and leading super power. A country that steals, use coercion as a tactic, invade weaker nations (still doing this look it up), bring no aid or relief programs for other countries...this is a terrifying country to hold the number one global position don't you think?

China needs to be dismantled in terms of their bargaining and coercion power just a little bit. This NEEDS to happen right now. This is a good thing.
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)
90 months ago
Obviously Huawei wants Apple to keep manufacturing in China. Otherwise, how would Huawei get all of their new tech?
Without American or Korean companies to steal from, Huawei is nothing...
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
90 months ago
He's being quite magnanimous considering our country is using its worldwide political power to try and destroy his company, not to mention having his daughter arrested and used as a political pawn in a trade dispute.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)