<p>Despite extensive research on organizational legitimacy, how organizations build trustworthiness - a more specific relational perception based on demonstrated ability, benevolence, and integrity - through strategic communication remains unexplored. Drawing on critical discourse analysis of Huawei Technologies’ global expansion (2005–2016), we develop a dynamic framework revealing how organizations discursively construct and contest trustworthiness during international growth. Analysis of 2,536 archival texts from company documents, Chinese business media, and the Wall Street Journal identifies nine trustworthiness themes expressed through four communication strategies (Building, Strengthening, Adjusting, Discerning) and three discourse tactics (semantics, hermeneutics, pragmatics). Our findings reveal how organizations navigate discursive struggles with diverse stakeholders, adapting language to manage power relationships while maintaining strategic coherence. We contribute new theoretical insights on organizational trustworthiness as a dynamic, contextually constructed perception and advance understanding of strategic communication in global expansion, particularly for emerging market firms in contested sectors. Our framework provides analytical tools for examining discursive trustworthiness strategies across institutional contexts.</p>