Matt Hancock has claimed Donald Trump had nothing to do with the UK's decision to ban Huawei.

Huawei

Huawei

The US President alleged on Tuesday (14.07.20) that he played a part in persuading the UK government to block the Chinese telecoms giant from the country's 5G network because he believes they could pose a huge security risk and after they did the same in the States.

He said: "We convinced many countries, many countries - and I did this myself for the most part - not to use Huawei, because we think it's an unsafe security risk.

"It's a big security risk and I talked many countries out of using it. If they want to do business with us, they can't use it."

However, but the UK's Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has insisted Trump by no means influenced their decision.

He told Sky News: "We all know Donald Trump don't we.

"All sorts of people can try to claim credit for this decision, but this was based on a technical decision by the National Cyber Security Centre about how we can have the highest quality 5G systems in future."

Liu Xiaoming, the ambassador to the UK, has said the decision to ban Huawei is "disheartening".

Further to this, China has accused Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson of being "America's dupe".

Beijing's foreign ministry spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, said the country had blacklisted Huawei "without any concrete evidence".

In a massive U-turn, Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden announced this week that telecoms firms will be banned from buying Huawei 5G equipment from December 31.

And by 2027, the company's existing 5G technology will be cut.

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