Trade negotiations are at standstill as Washington weighs how much business with telecom-equipment giant to allow.

Licenses would allow U.S. suppliers to resume sales to blacklisted Chinese firm.

The U.S. government will issue licenses to companies seeking to sell goods to China’s Huawei where there is no threat to national security.

While Huawei may present a genuine security risk to the United States and the world, there are big problems with the current case against the telecommunications giant, and banning all forms of commerce is not the way forward.

The U.S. government filed a motion on Wednesday asking for the dismissal of a lawsuit by Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies Co Ltd that claimed the United States had acted illegally when it blacklisted Huawei’s products.

In the current China-US trade war, some see an analogy to the Japan-US trade dispute over semiconductors in the 1980s. But past US success does not augur victory in the present conflict over 5G tech—today’s China is far more capable and innovative than 1980s Japan.

A senior U.S. official this week told the Commerce Department’s enforcement staff that China’s Huawei should still be treated as blacklisted, days after U.S. President Donald Trump sowed confusion with a vow to ease a ban on selling to the firm.