AT&T backs out of Mate 10 Pro deal because of 'political pressure' against Huawei's alleged Communist ties

The United States Federal Communications Commission sent a letter to AT&T detailing their concerns about the Huaweie partnership.REUTERS/Stringer

The Huawei Mate 10 and Mate 10 Pro are the upcoming flagship phones from the Chinese-based company. It is expected to launch big in the United States, but carrier partner AT&T dropped off of the deal at the last minute.

Huwaei highly publicized their expansion to the United States markets via promotions on their U.S. Facebook Page and their tweets. AT&T was supposed to be the carrier that will propel the Chinese brand's presence in the country. Now that the deal is off, the Mate 10 and Mate 10 Pro will now only be available in stores like Amazon and Best Buy.

The expected partnership was supposed to be announced at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) held in Las Vegas, Nevada, along with the U.S. introduction of Huawei's upcoming flagship phone model.

As for why AT&T dropped out of the deal, the reasons were reported to be somewhat controversial. The major U.S. carrier generally classified the reasons as "political pressure." According to a report via The Information, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) sent a letter to AT&T saying that Huawei has "alleged ties to the Communist Party as well as China's intelligence and security services."

Regardless of the reasons why AT&T would not support them, the Mate 10 and Mate 10 Pro are capable flagship phones. The Pro version sports a 6-inch organic light-emitting diode (OLED) screen that supports 2160 by 1080 pixels of resolution. It has 6 GB of random access memory (RAM) and 128 GB of storage, but with no support for MicroSD expansion.

It has dual rear cameras apparently made by Leica which are rated at 12 megapixel (MP) RGB and 20 MP monochrome, with an f/2.0 aperture.

The Mate 10 Pro is expected to cost $799. Both Mate 10 and the Pro version will be available in U.S. markets on February 18, via the Amazon online store or brick and mortar shops like Best Buy.