Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said the U.S. government will “shortly” issue licenses to allow some suppliers to ship some U.S. products to Huawei, although he cautioned that the export restrictions imposed in May presume any license application will be denied.

Nonetheless, “We will obviously approve quite a few of them,” he told Bloomberg TV journalist Haslinda Amin during an interview yesterday in Bangkok.

He said the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), the agency within Commerce that reviews license applications, has received approximately 260 applications to ship products to Huawei.

“That’s a lot of applications. It’s frankly more than we would have thought,” he said.

Pressed by Amin to quantify when licenses will be issued, he responded, “It’s shortly. It’s less than longly.”

Listen to the exchange about Huawei:

Audio Source: Bloomberg TV