US President Donald Trump at a press briefing on Tuesday said that the US had convinced “many countries” to step away from Huawei owing to security risks.

“We confronted untrustworthy Chinese technology and telecom providers. 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,” Trump said at a press briefing.

The statement was made shortly after the United Kingdom had announced its decision to remove Huawei from the country’s 5G networks citing security risks.

“It’s a big security risk. I talked many countries out of using it. If they want to do business with us, they can’t use it. Just today, I believe that UK announced that they’re not going to be using it. And that was up in the air for a long time but they’ve decided,” Trump said.

The decision was made based on a review by the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) on the impact of US sanctions on the Chinese telco.

The United States had recently imposed various sanctions on the Chinese company, banning it from using American technology and equipment. This had raised various security concerns among leaders in the UK.

Huawei had previously been vocal about the UK government basing its decision on US sanctions.

“Shouldn’t the US respect a United Kingdom in the post-Brexit era being in a position to chose its own telecommunication strategy? On #Huawei right now, the Trump administration wants to call the shots,” Paul Harrison, Head of International Media Huawei UK had tweeted before the UK’s decision was announced.

The company, in its official statement, on the decision further said that its future in the UK had been “politicised.”

Edward Brewster, spokesperson of Huawei UK, said, “This disappointing decision is bad news for anyone in the UK with a mobile phone. It threatens to move Britain into the digital slow lane, push up bills and deepen the digital divide. Instead of ‘levelling up’, the government is levelling down and we urge them to reconsider. We remain confident that the new US restrictions would not have affected the resilience or security of the products we supply to the UK.

“Regrettably, our future in the UK has become politicised, this is about US trade policy and not security.”

“Disappointing and wrong decision by the UK on #Huawei. It has become questionable whether the UK can provide an open, fair and non-discriminatory business environment for companies from other countries,” tweeted Chinese ambassador to the UK Liu Xiaoming.

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